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SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A new report released today by the Department of Water Resources (DWR) examines how a combination of strategies, most importantly the Delta Conveyance Project, can help the State Water Project (SWP) maintain reliable water deliveries to 27 million Californians despite hotter temperatures, more extreme storms, more severe droughts, and higher sea levels.
This first-ever State Water Project Adaptation Strategy details over a dozen different actions DWR is already taking or evaluating. The plan concludes that while climate change makes a long-term decline in SWP annual average water deliveries likely, a portfolio of actions can offset much of the decline.
The plan focuses on five actions to help DWR understand which holds the greatest potential to help climate-proof the SWP. The most promising action to improve water supply reliability is the construction of the Delta Conveyance Project for the following reasons:
- The project is the single most effective strategy on its own, but it also amplifies the impact of other strategies.
- The proposed project would build two new intakes and a tunnel to move water directly from the Sacramento River to the existing SWP pumping plant in the Delta.
- This would safeguard water deliveries from disruption in the event of levee collapse in the Delta and would enable the SWP to capture more storm runoff.
- Additionally, the Project would help prevent water delivery disruptions by providing protection against earthquakes.
The SWP Climate Adaptation Strategy also finds that:
- Continued maintenance and additional restoration of the infrastructure system, including repairing subsidence-damaged sections of the California Aqueduct, are first-priority measures.
- Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations, or FIRO, is a safe and effective strategy with low costs and few drawbacks, but the amount of water supply it can deliver is relatively small. It should be implemented as soon as possible in coordination with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approvals.
- Additional South-of-Delta water storage is promising as a third priority strategy, but its benefits are limited without the Delta Conveyance Project.
- A combination of responses is needed, because each strategy responds to a different climate stressor. Utilizing a combination of different strategies will result in greater climate adaptation capabilities.
“Anything that compromises the State Water Project poses a threat to public health and economic success,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “This analysis helps us understand the best science-based strategies to ensure continued SWP deliveries in the face of both greater aridity and more powerful storms. We need that not just for the public water agencies that pay for the State Water Project, but to continue the role the State Water Project plays in protecting Delta water quality during drought and upstream communities during floods.”
DWR operates the SWP and manages water resources statewide. Since 2006, the department has been evaluating and planning for climate change. This latest effort, the SWP Adaptation Strategy, will guide executive decision-making about the future needs and capabilities of the SWP. The plan bundles potential strategies into portfolios and evaluates those portfolios over a range of potential climate conditions.
DWR will continue to update and optimize the adaptation strategies evaluated and innovate new strategies in partnership with the SWP contractors, other state and federal partners and local and regional agencies.
Built starting in the 1960s, the SWP stretches from Oroville to Riverside. The keystone SWP reservoir, Lake Oroville, helps manage floods in Northern California. SWP canals, hydroelectric generators, and pumping plants move water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to 29 public water agencies, largely based in the South Bay, Central Coast, South Coast, Inland Empire, and Kern County. The local public water agencies cover the costs of operating the SWP. Learn more at https://water.ca.gov/Programs/State-Water-Project.
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