“There is only so much water and some years there’s hardly any.” – Jay Lund, Co-Director of Watershed Sciences @ UC Davis
California is nicknamed “The Golden State.” More often however, it is brown due to scant rain and snowfall which reduces available water supplies.Most Californians think of drought as an occasional problem that pops up and then goes away. Research suggests that the past 100 years have been wetter and drought less common than before the Europeans arrived. Droughts of 25 to 30 years were not uncommon and droughts lasting several hundred years have occurred.Is California prepared for these longer droughts and even mega-droughts? What is our state government doing to change our mindset and work on solutions other than water storage and overseeing groundwater use?The answers are not clear nor are they positive.Video by Cyndy GreenCo-Produced by Michael Cockrell
Tree-Ring Study Reveals Historical Drought Record in Southern California
Climate-driven megadrought is emerging in western US, study says (phys.org)
Drought Timescales: Short- vs. Long-Term Drought | Drought.gov
Microsoft PowerPoint – meko2009d_mod1-ESTES.ppt (ca.gov)
Drought Contingency Plan (ca.gov) (SWP & CVP only)
Current Map | U.S. Drought Monitor (unl.edu)
Delta Cross Channel Fact Sheet (usbr.gov)
Handbook of Drought Indicators and Indices (droughtmanagement.info)
Drought | USGS California Water Science Center
Subsidence in California links
Agricultural Losses from Salinity in California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (escholarship.org)
California Droughts Compared | USGS California Water Science Center
How Did the State Respond to the Last Major Drought? (ca.gov)
What Can We Learn From How the State Responded to the Last Major Drought?
Report to The Legislature on the 2012-16 Drought (ca.gov)
California Doesn’t Have a Plan for Drought | NRDC
Opinion: San Francisco doesn’t have a sustainable drought plan (msn.com)
GOVERNOR CONVENES DROUGHT TASK FORCE – California Agriculture News Today (californiaagtoday.com) (Brown-
CAP14-20210421165344 (Newsom 2021)
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Atlas – California Water Library (cawaterlibrary.net)
Cyndy Green has been intrigued by news since she got a toy printing press as a six year old. She switched to visual story telling at the age of 12 with her first still camera and moved to broadcasting after an internship in 1974. After 28 years in broadcast news and another 8 teaching broadcasting, she still can’t live without a camera in hand and an editing computer nearby, so in retirement she continues creating visual stories.
Michael Cockrell’s public service career has included law enforcement, water conservation enforcement, and emergency management. After 35-years at San Joaquin County’s Office of Emergency Services (OES), he retired as Director in December 2017. His OES experience between 1982-2017 included a wide range of emergencies and disasters such as floods, earthquake recovery, mass-casualty incidents, train derailments, hazardous materials releases, droughts, extreme heat and cold events. His education includes Associate and Bachelor degrees in Social Science, concentrating in Administration of Justice, and, a Master’s Degree in Public Administration. He has also completed many continued-education courses on administration and emergency management.
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