California, Balancing regional sustainability and imported water supplies

Water leaders in Southern California (and the San Francisco Bay Area) will be increasingly challenged to implement a new state policy on regional sustainability and self-sufficiency while reducing the urban dependence on imported water supplies. The future of massive urban water projects is not clear and will be a central part of this public policy debate.social policies. The  solutions to developing sustainable urban supplies in California, particularly in times of shortage, will require balancing complex issues of equity, environmental protection, economics and cultural and social change. California’s approach to “water in an urbanising world” offers many lessons to be shared  throughout the world, and particularly in areas with similar geopolitical and climatological challenges.

For example, the California Legislature in late 2009 passed a new “policy of the State of California… to meet California’s future water supply needs through a statewide strategy of investing in improved

regional supplies, conservation, and water use efficiency.” According to this policy, “each region…shall improve its regional self-reliance for water through investment in water use efficiency, water recycling,

advanced water technologies, local and regional water supply projects, and improved regional coordination of local and regional water supply efforts.” (California Water Code §85021). This new policy for regional sustainability will be implemented against the backdrop of these large water projects, signifying and important policy shift on how California’s urban water needs will be met in the future. The policy tension between regional sustainability and reliance on imported water supplies will pervade the future water

policy debate in California with a focus on the two largest metropolitan areas – Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. The following is a glimpse into this dynamic in Southern California.

Balancing imports and sustainability

Southern California continues to depend upon imported water brought into the region by large projects  from the Colorado River, Northern California through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the Owens

Valley and Mono Lake.  The primary agency that imports water to Southern California is the Metropolitan

Water District (MWD), which was formed in 1928 to import water for urbanisation. Its Board of Directors recently updated its Integrated Resources Plan (IRP), providing a roadmap for maintaining regional water supply reliability over the next 25 years in Southern California. The IRP, through a three-component  approach, places an increased emphasis on regional self-sufficiency, but it is still highly dependent upon importing water from the large water projects.

 • A core resources strategy represents base line efforts to manage water supply and demand conditions and to stabilize MWD’s traditional imports from the Colorado River and the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta. MWD and its member agencies will advance water use efficiency through conservation and recycling, and with further local development such as groundwater recovery and seawater desalination.

• A cost-effective “supply buffer” will help protect the region from possible shortages caused by conditions that exceed the core resources strategy, starting with increased conservation and water-use efficiency on a region-wide basis.

- Foundational actions guide the region in determining alternative supply options for long-range planning.

If future changed conditions – such as climate change or the availability of resources exceed what is  covered by MWD’s core resources and supply buffer – these alternatives would provide a greater contribution to water reliability than MWD’s imported water sources or any other single supply.