Tag Archives: flood control

The State Water Board needs to act to start Flood MAR pilot projects

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I recently presented to CDWR’s Lunch-MAR group the findings for a series of studies we conducted on the universe of benefits from floodwater managed aquifer recharge (MAR) and the related economic and financing issues. I also proposed that an important next step is to run a set of pilots to study the acceptability of on-farm floodwater recharge projects to growers, including how do they respond to incentives and program design, and what are the potential physical consequences.

The key to initiating these pilots is getting a clear declaration from the State Water Resources Control Board that excess floodwaters are surplus and available. Unfortunately, the Water Board has not provided sufficient clarification on how these projects can take “advantage of seasonal or occasional flood waters that overtop the banks of a stream and are then directed into a designated recharge area.” Instead, the Board’s website says that such diverted floodwaters cannot be stored for future beneficial use–which obviates the very purpose of retaining the floodwaters in the first place.

The Board should be at least issuing temporary use permits for floodwaters above certain designated levels as being available for pilot projects on the basis that non-use of those floodwaters constitute a surrender of that right for the year. Then those agencies interested in flood MAR can design projects to experiment with potential configurations.

Using floods to replenish groundwater

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ALMOND ORCHARD FLOODING

M.Cubed produced four reports for Sustainable Conservation on using floodwaters to recharge aquifers in California’s Central Valley. The first is on expected costs. The next three are a set on the benefits, participation incentives and financing options for using floodwaters in wetter years to replenish groundwater aquifers. We found that costs would range around $100 per acre-foot, and beneficiaries include not only local farmers, but also downstream communities with lower flood control costs, upstream water users with more space for storage instead of flood control, increased hydropower generation, and more streamside habitat. We discussed several different approaches to incentives based on our experience in a range of market-based regulatory settings and the water transfer market.

With the PPIC’s release of Water and the Future of the San Joaquin Valley, which forecasts a loss of 500,000 acres of agricultural production due to reduced groundwater pumping under the State Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), local solutions that mitigate groundwater restrictions should be moving to the fore.

Don Cameron at Terranova Ranch started doing this deliberately earlier this decade, and working with Phil Bachand and UC Davis, more study has shown the effectiveness, and the lack of risk to crops, from this strategy. The Department of Water Resources has implemented the Flood-MAR program to explore this alternative further. The Flood-MAR whitepaper explores many of these issues, but its list of beneficiaries is incomplete, and the program appears to not yet moved on to how to effectively implement these programs integrated with the local SGMA plans. Our white papers could be useful starting points for that discussion.

(Image Source: Chico Enterprise-Record)

 

 

 

Thoughts on “California’s Water System Built for a Climate We No Longer Have” | KQED Science

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We just looked at the frequency of different water conditions over the last 15, 35 and 110 years. Over the longer period, wet, “normal” or average, and dry years have occurred in about equal shares, at about one-third each. But over the last 35 years dry conditions have occurred in about half of the years. Over the last 15 years, wet conditions have declined to less than 20% of the years.

We’re also working with Sustainable Conservation on a program that will incentivize growers to use diverted floodwaters to recharge groundwater aquifers below their fields.

California is likely to see more extreme floods and drought with climate change, but the state’s water infrastructure may not be ready.

Source: California’s Water System Built for a Climate We No Longer Have | KQED Science