- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Wheeler-Dykes returns to roots with tree crops, weeds
“I was born and raised on a small prune and walnut farm in Gridley, in nearby Butte County, and am very excited to be putting down roots close to family,” said Wheeler-Dykes, who started in this role on June 1.
Covering olives, prunes, walnuts and almonds, with an emphasis on weed management research in those cropping systems, Wheeler-Dykes is spending her first months on the job getting to know the region's growers and broader agricultural community.
“I hope to really form great relationships with the clientele in my counties, providing a resource that they can trust and rely on,” she said. “I want to serve as an advocate for our region in developing research and finding answers for the unique systems we have here. My interests are alternative weed management in orchard systems and canopy management, but I look forward to hearing what other areas need to be addressed.”
After earning both a bachelor's in crop science and business management and a master's in entomology (with a focus on integrated pest management in tree crops) from UC Davis, Wheeler-Dykes has conducted extensive agricultural research.
“I'm excited to bring those experiences to the Sac Valley as the newest advisor,” she said, encouraging growers and producers in the region to contact her with the challenges they are facing.
Based at the UCCE Glenn County office in Orland, Wheeler-Dykes can be reached at bawheeler@ucanr.edu and (530) 884-9313.
Castiaux expands role with Small Farms and Specialty Crops Program
Aiming to build capacity to address growing challenges across California agriculture, she is excited to continue with the Small Farms and Specialty Crops Program in Fresno, where she has been working for the last 3½ years as a project manager for the Healthy Soils Program.
Castiaux earned a Master of Science in conservation leadership from Colorado State University and a bachelor's degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from University of California, Santa Cruz. She has eight years of practical cross-cultural experience in agriculture, teaching and implementing climate-smart agricultural practices and summarizing complex topics in a more simplified form to various diverse audiences.
Fluent in Spanish, Castiaux was a bilingual lead educator for community-based participatory climate change resiliency programs for sugar cane farmers in Paraguay and coffee farmers in Mexico. She also worked with the California Strawberry Commission as a grower education specialist for three years teaching farmworkers and growers food safety, practices and research.
Castiaux is based in Fresno County and is best reached by email at mjcastiaux@ucanr.edu.
Angeles brings weed expertise to San Joaquin Valley
“I was born and raised in Tulare County and have been working in agriculture my entire life,” he said.
After receiving his bachelor's degree in plant science from Fresno State, Angeles conducted pesticide efficacy trials at the DuPont Research Farm in Madera. He later earned a master's in plant science from Fresno State, writing his thesis under the supervision of weed science professor Anil Shrestha and retired UCCE advisor Kurt Hembree.
An employee of UCCE for the past six years, Angeles worked with a pair of emeritus UCCE academics, Steve Wright and Bob Hutmacher.
Currently, Angeles is talking with growers, pest control advisers and other farm advisors on the pressing weed management issues across the region.
“One of my main goals is to find alternative control methods for some of the herbicide-resistant and invasive weeds that are a problem in different agricultural crops,” he said.
Based in Tulare, Angeles can be reached at jaangeles@ucanr.edu and (559) 684-3300.
Johnson joins UC ANR as urban ag tech advisor
Johnson provides unbiased, research-driven information to people working in urban agriculture, with a focus on controlled environments such as greenhouses. His clientele is interested in adopting technologies that can improve plant production, ranging from nurseries and commercial growers to community members managing local gardens.
In his newly created role, Johnson's efforts will influence the scope of work for urban agricultural technology advisors to come. One of the challenges that he anticipates is “focusing knowledge” or choosing a specific problem to prioritize.
“I'm really interested in irrigation, soil and plant culture. There's a lot to consider and there's a lot that can be done,” said Johnson.
Before he was hired as an advisor, Johnson worked as a staff research associate for five years at the South Coast Research and Extension Center in Irvine under Darren Haver, director of UC ANR's Research and Extension Center system.
“I learned a lot while I was an SRA, but there was only so much that I could do. I wanted more freedom to explore as a researcher, so I decided I wanted to become an advisor,” Johnson said, adding that his career goal inspired him to return to school.
Johnson earned a master's degree in horticulture and agronomy from UC Davis, as well as a bachelor's degree in biology from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
One of the exciting aspects of the job, according to Johnson, is the ability to get creative and explore new territory. “I have some fun research interests, like how to grow wasabi or maximize saffron production using hydroponics,” Johnson explained.
“I'm interested in the kind of things that might be culturally important or significant to certain communities, and how they can be made more affordable and accessible,” he added.
Johnson is based out of the South Coast Research and Extension Center and can be reached at gejohnson@ucanr.edu.
Cohen joins UCCE as entomology advisor in Ventura County
Cohen earned her Ph.D. from UC Santa Cruz, where she studied how to develop agricultural practices to promote a diversity of beneficial insects and ecosystem services. She then conducted postdoctoral research at UC Riverside, where she studied pollinator health in Yolo County sunflowers.
Her research has been presented at national and international conferences, published in more than 14 peer-reviewed publications, and shared through blogs, factsheets and field days with her local grower community.
Prior to joining UC ANR, Cohen worked as a commercial horticulture agent with the Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida. This summer she will work with industry and university partners across Ventura County to evaluate the needs of the local growers and design an applied research and extension program.
Cohen is excited to address a myriad of issues related to pest management, including identification and monitoring, pest biology and phenology, crop loss assessment, pesticide resistance prevention, and evaluation of integrated pest management methods with an emphasis on biological and cultural controls. She is eager to conduct this work in regional crops such as berries, avocado, citrus and more.
“Ventura County is an important place to advance agricultural practices that reduce economic damage from pests while minimizing impacts on the environment, farmworkers and consumers,” said Cohen.
Cohen is based out of the UCCE office in Ventura and can be reached at hcohen@ucanr.edu. You can also follow her on Instagram @beescientista.
Tang joins UCCE in Napa County to work on water issues
Tang will be developing water resiliency strategies for stakeholders and diverse ecosystems across Napa County. In addition, he will design and implement creative research, acquire and share technical knowledge, and promote stewardship of surface and groundwater resources to meet the needs of competing users and natural systems.
This summer, Tang will collaborate with growers, UC Davis researchers and UC ANR colleagues to measure the crop coefficient of Napa grape vineyards.
“This work aims to support groundwater sustainability planning with water budget calculations and to provide crucial information for irrigation management,” he said.
Prior to joining UC ANR, Tang earned a Ph.D. in soil science from Pennsylvania State University, where his work focused on the ecohydrology of oak-maple forest. Fluent in Mandarin, he also holds a bachelor's degree in hydrogeology from Nanjing University in China. Tang took a one-year training at North Carolina State University as a postdoctoral scholar working on large-scale nutrient modeling.
He is looking forward to applying his experience and learning new skills in his new role.
“I am very excited about this new journey,” said Tang. “Water problems are pressing, important and interesting.”
Tang is based at the UCCE office in Napa and can be reached at qictang@ucanr.edu, LinkedIn and Twitter @qicheng_tang.
Water Talk podcast wins Conservation Innovation Award
The Water Talk Podcast Team received the 2023 Conservation Innovation Award by the Soil and Water Conservation Society, an international organization based in Ankeny, Iowa.
Water Talk is hosted by Faith Kearns, California Institute for Water Resources academic coordinator, and UC Cooperative Extension water specialists Mallika Nocco and Samuel Sandoval Solis, with production support from UC Davis students Victoria Roberts and Paloma Herrera-Thomas.
The goal of Water Talk is to bring communities across California together to talk about water issues, including climate change, scarcity and access.
The podcast's fourth season just wrapped, and the hosts have interviewed a wide range of guests. They have talked with UCCE colleagues Leslie Roche and Dan Macon about livestock water use, Angel Fernandez-Bou and Jose Pablo Ortiz Partida of the Union of Concerned Scientists about water equity, journalist Ian James of the Los Angeles Times about reporting on contentious water issues and Laurel Firestone of the State Water Resources Control Board discussing water governance, leadership and policy implementation and many others.
The award will officially be presented to the team at the SWCS International Annual Conference in Des Moines, Iowa, on Aug. 8.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Galdi moves to UCCE in Merced County
Giuliano Galdi joined UC Cooperative Extension in Merced County on May 1 as an agronomy and crops advisor. In Merced, he will be working with alfalfa, corn, cotton, and small grain crops, as well as helping with weed management and other issues related to crop production.
He had served as a UC Cooperative Extension agronomy advisor in Siskiyou County since 2019.
While in Siskiyou County, he worked on managing blue alfalfa aphids and investigating crop injury to Roundup Ready alfalfa with Rob Wilson, director of Intermountain Research and Extension Center and UCCE in Siskiyou County; and Tom Getts, UCCE weed and crop systems advisor for Lassen County. Galdi also conducted research on irrigation efficiency, winter groundwater recharge, and soil moisture sensors.
Prior to joining UCCE, Galdi was a junior specialist at UC Davis (May 2017–December 2018), where he worked on a variety of field trials, mainly alfalfa and forage crops, with the objective of improving the sustainability of water use and hay quality. As a master's student and student research assistant at Fresno State, Galdi evaluated salinity tolerance in different alfalfa varieties. He speaks Portuguese fluently.
Galdi earned a M.S. in plant sciences from Fresno State and a B.S. in agronomy engineering from University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Galdi is based in Merced and can be reached at (209) 385-7403 and gcgaldi@ucanr.edu.
Reyes joins UCCE as orchard systems advisor
Clarissa Reyes joined UC Cooperative Extension on March 1 as an orchard systems advisor. Her role focuses on walnut, cling peach and kiwifruit production in Sutter, Yuba, Butte and Placer counties. Reyes serves as a point of contact for orchard owners when they need support diagnosing problems and solving them.
Reyes is excited about developing climate-adapted management practices and working with the recently expanded team of orchard advisors serving the northern Sacramento Valley, but she also anticipates encountering some challenges.
“Some of the challenges I expect to face are low crop prices despite increasing costs to farmers, including labor and inputs; water scarcity; and more frequent and higher temperature heat waves affecting fruit development and quality,” explained Reyes.
Reyes earned a master's degree in horticulture and agronomy from UC Davis. She also earned a bachelor's degree in biology from UC San Diego.
When describing her journey into agriculture, Reyes said that she “likes the way food makes it easy to connect with people.” She also said that after realizing a career in biotech was “not a good fit,” she let her love for gardening alter her career path.
“I'm really into food systems and food is an important part of culture,” said Reyes. “So, it was the overlap of research and food. Even though the science part can go over someone's head, everyone understands food.”
Before joining Cooperative Extension, she worked as a junior specialist studying plant-water relations at UC Davis. While her research was focused on grapevines, she started working with walnut trees, which exposed her to opportunities in orchard systems. Afterwards, she became a staff research associate in orchards systems in Butte, Glenn and Tehama Counties.
Reyes is based out of the UC Cooperative Extension office in Yuba City and can be reached at clareyes@ucanr.edu.
Sedell joins Program Planning and Evaluation
Jennifer Sedell joined UC ANR on May 16 as a program policy analyst with Program Planning and Evaluation. Sedell will be managing the UC Delivers Blog, leading publication of future UC ANR annual reports, and providing analytical support to Vice President Glenda Humiston, among other projects.
Before joining UC ANR, she worked at UC Davis for over 10 years in the Departments of Entomology and Human Ecology, and with senior leadership for Undergraduate Education. She completed her master's in community development and Ph.D. in geography at UC Davis with a focus on agricultural and environmental policy. Her research has been published in Geoforum, Food, Culture and Society, Liberal Education, and the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council.
Sedell brings experience assessing projects and programs. With partners in entomology and human ecology, she evaluated community perceptions of plant-health emergency programs in California. The work resulted in the USDA accepting several recommendations to improve community engagement in their emergency response system. Most recently, she evaluated efforts to make agricultural education more equitable, inclusive and culturally responsive for the UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute, which used to include UC ANR's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program.
Over her career, Sedell has worked with government agencies and community-based organizations to identify community needs. She has collaborated on institutional and programmatic strategic plans. In addition to her work at UC Davis, Sedell has worked at the American Red Cross managing AmeriCorps programs across Oregon. Prior to that, she coordinated programming for the Sexual and Gender Minority Youth Resource Center in Portland as an AmeriCorps member.
Sedell is based at UCOP in the Franklin Building in Oakland and can be reached at jennifer.sedell@ucop.edu and (510) 987-0199.
Choi joins Risk and Safety Services
Duwon Choi joined Risk and Safety Services on March 20 as an environmental health and safety specialist.
Along with his Risk and Safety Services colleagues, Choi is responsible for overseeing safety and environmental aspects of programs and research at UC ANR. He is currently focusing on ergonomics to make sure every ANR staff member can work in a comfortable setting.
Prior to joining UC ANR, Choi worked as an EH&S specialist at Mare Island Drydock in Vallejo, maintaining vessels for the Navy, Coast Guard and various ship liners.
Choi graduated from UC Davis in 2015 with a B.S. in neurobiology, physiology and behavior and a minor in Art Studio, with an original ambition to pursue dentistry, but he switched to environmental health and safety.
“In my spare time,” he says, “you can catch me traveling off somewhere in the world, going skiing at Lake Tahoe in the winter, or being a butler to my tuxedo cat, Bomi.”
Choi is based at the UC ANR building in Davis and can be reached at dwchoi@ucanr.edu and (530) 240-7146.
Paradise joins Risk and Safety Services
Jacob Paradise joined Risk and Safety Services on April 24 as an environmental health and safety specialist.
Paradise will be assisting Risk & Safety in environmental stewardship and compliance, emergency preparedness and response efforts, institutional resiliency and continuity of operations, as well as integration of new software and tools from the systemwide Risk & Safety Solutions team.
Prior to joining UC ANR, he worked in waste diversion, wine and hospitality. Paradise, who moved to Davis from Oakland two years ago, earned a degree in environmental studies from San Francisco State University.
Paradise is based at the UC ANR building in Davis and can be reached at jparadise@ucanr.edu.
Harris honored by University of Wisconsin-Madison institute
In her lectureship presentation, “Nuts! How a foodborne outbreak serendipitously shaped a career,” Harris described how in 2001, an outbreak of salmonellosis was linked, for the first time, to consumption of raw California almonds.
The traceback investigation identified the outbreak strain in the almonds at retail and all along the supply chain back to the orchard. As the outbreak investigation was winding down, her laboratory was beginning what became a 20+ year journey investigating Salmonella and almonds from production agriculture through final consumption. Studies sought to uncover potential routes of contamination and long-term environmental persistence of Salmonella during production, harvest and postharvest handling. Laboratory studies focused on methods to inoculate and recover microorganisms from almonds, survival of pathogens on almonds during storage, and evaluation of the thermal resistance of pathogens and candidate surrogates.
These data, along with information on the prevalence and levels of Salmonella in almonds, enabled the development of quantitative microbial risk assessments, the establishment of appropriate target reductions for lethality process controls, and validation of several key commercial practices such as blanching and oil roasting. More recent studies have explored the risks associated with soaking almonds and a range of dairy analogs made from them.
Since worldwide nut production has expanded rapidly over the past 20 years with a corresponding increase in consumption, Harris and her laboratory's work with the behavior, movement, prevalence, and especially control of foodborne pathogens, from the field to consumer handling, from almonds to pistachios and walnuts, has been and will continue to be a foundation for food-safety tree nut and produce research. – Zann Gates
Ferguson named ASHS Fellow
The recognition is “more than well-deserved and should have happened YEARS ago!” wrote ASHS Executive Director Michael Neff. ASHS fellows are elected “in recognition of outstanding contributions to the science, profession, or industry of horticulture,” he added.
“It is gratifying to be honored by one's peers,” said Ferguson.
Under Ferguson's guidance, the ASHS Leadership Academy began two years ago by offering online seminars to participants from all over the United States. “We're training them to be leaders in our professional society, and also to be advocates for the society,” Ferguson said. The program pulls together the ASHS foundations of research, teaching and practice, which was capped earlier this year by a trip to Washington, D.C., to advocate in Congress for the 2023 Farm Bill Reauthorization.
The current second class of the Leadership Academy will graduate and the third class will be inducted at the ASHS annual meeting, July 31 to Aug. 4, in Orlando, Florida.
Leadership training is important to Ferguson because she didn't get it early in her own career, she said. She wants to see the generation of new leaders coming up – as well as ASHS as a whole – to benefit from good preparation in this area, she added.
Ferguson has served as the society's president and president-elect during the challenging days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has received other honors. – Trina Kleist
Faith Kearns' book “Getting to the Heart of Science Communication: A Guide to Effective Engagement” was selected as a 2023 Nautilus Book Awards Gold Winner in the category of Relationships & Communication (large press).
For scientists to communicate effectively about science, they must not only be experts in their fields of study, they must navigate the thoughts, feelings and opinions of the people they engage with and with each other.
Kearns, an academic coordinator for the California Institute for Water Resources at University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, has written about what she has learned in 25 years of practice in Getting to the Heart of Science Communication: A Guide to Effective Engagement from Island Press. The book includes on-the-ground experiences of many science communicators, including those working in Cooperative Extension.
Dahlquist-Willard appointed to state Ag Land Equity Task Force
She is among the 12 inaugural members appointed by the California Strategic Growth Council to the task force, which will develop policy recommendations to equitably increase access to agricultural land for food production and traditional tribal agricultural uses. Established by the Legislature last year, the task force will meet every quarter over three years and submit a full report of policy recommendations to the State Legislature and Governor by January 1, 2026.
Historically, women and people of color in California have been blocked from stable access to land and other resources necessary for successful farming, a legacy that persists today. A recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows only 37% of all farmers in the California are female and only 9% are Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC). In 2020, the California Department of Food and Agriculture found that such farmers and ranchers often lack stable access to land, which negatively affects the long-term sustainability of their businesses. Equitably increasing stable access to agricultural land in California will promote farmers' economic resilience, a robust food system in the state, and healthy natural and working lands.
The task force will have 13 regionally diverse members, including native and tribal liaisons, a land trust representative, individuals with expertise in issues affecting socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers, an individual with expertise in agricultural land acquisition and finance, a State Board of Food and Agriculture member, a farmworker representative, a beginning farmer, the California Department of Food and Agriculture Farm Equity Advisor, and an individual from the new California Department of Food and Agriculture BIPOC Farmer Advisory Committee.
Dahlquist-Willard will contribute her expertise in issues affecting socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers.
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
UC ANR experts address emotional toll of drought
Preparing the American West for prolonged drought is the focus of a double issue of Water Resources IMPACT magazine. The California Water Commission staff are guest editors for this special open-access edition of the magazine, which is published by the American Water Resources Association.
Faith Kearns, academic coordinator of University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources' California Institute for Water Resources, is among the authors delving into how drought impacts people and the environment and how we can better prepare for the inevitable.
The first issue, published on Feb. 14, focuses on water scarcity issues confronting California and the ways these issues affect different sectors.
In “Trauma, Care, and Solidarity: Addressing the Emotional Toll of Chronic Drought,” Kearns highlights the effects of drought on mental health. She points to the spike in suicide hotline calls when wells ran dry in Southeast Asian communities in California's Central Valley.
By listening to Southeast Asian farmers, Ruth Dahlquist-Willard and Michael Yang of UC Cooperative Extension were able to “lighten the load” for them by providing pragmatic support, Kearns writes.
“The scale of some of these highly emotional issues – drought, wildfires, climate change – can make them seem incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to deal with,” Kearns said. “At the same time, they are affecting everyone living in the western U.S. on a daily basis. I wanted to highlight and provide models based on work that people – whether they are researchers, clinical psychologists, or Cooperative Extension advisors – are doing right now to ease the way.”
The authors who contributed to the double issue are a diverse array of Tribal experts, academics, nongovernmental organization thought-leaders, water managers and water policy influencers, each of whom brings their own perspective on the topic of drought. Their expertise and perspectives in climate science, water policy and water management will help inform drought-related decision-making and support policies that better prepare the state to thrive during periods of prolonged water scarcity.
In addition to Kearns, the first issue includes articles contributed by:
- Samantha Stevenson, University of California, Santa Barbara
- Jay Lund, University of California, Davis
- Ron Goode, North Fork Mono Tribe
- Andy Fecko, Placer County Water Agency
- Jeff Mount, Public Policy Institute of California, and Ted Grantham, University of California, Berkeley/UC Cooperative Extension
- Nat Seavy and Karyn Stockdale, National Audubon Society
- Kjia Rivers, Community Water Center
- Cannon Michael, Bowles Farming
- Michelle Reimers, Turlock Irrigation District
The January/February edition of Water Resources IMPACT magazine can be accessed, free of charge, on the American Water Resources Association website at https://www.awra.org under “Publications.”
The second issue, to be published in March, will focus on drought response, considering the options for adaptation. This two-part series complements the Commission's work on strategies to protect communities and fish and wildlife in the event of a long-term drought.
- Author: Lauren Dunlap
Stakeholders from across disciplines and institutions offer recommendations to ensure safe, reliable water supply amid a growing wildfire threat
It's intuitive that wildfires can affect ecosystems, harm wildlife and contaminate streams and rivers. But wildfires can also have complex, severe and direct effects on our water supply and infrastructure — effects that have only become clear in recent years. Scientists and policymakers must integrate insights and experience from many disciplines and sectors to understand and address the consequences.
In September, 23 scholars and practitioners with a diversity of water and fire expertise came together to answer a critical question: How can California proactively protect its water supply from fires? Their findings, combined with the insights of the author team, form the basis of a new scoping report, released by the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources' California Institute for Water Resources and the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.
“Different people have different pieces of the puzzle, but it's really hard to put them together. That is why we assembled this cross-sector group,” said Faith Kearns, academic coordinator at the California Institute for Water Resources.
Illustrated by the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Wine Country, it has been recognized that community water systems face effects that last long after the fire is quenched. For example, Boulder Creek residents in Santa Cruz County still did not have reliable water access more than a year after firefighters extinguished the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire.
“This is truly an emergent issue,” said co-author Peter Roquemore, project manager at the Luskin Center for Innovation. “We have only seen wildfires directly affect community water systems in the past few years.”
To help California policymakers, researchers, affected communities, and water system operators understand the complex relationship between wildfire damage and water supply, the report authors and participants in this workshop present a set of recommendations:
- Make communications more accessible, consistent and trustworthy. Residents must receive timely, unified messaging, translated into appropriate languages and in accessible venues, telling them if their water is unsafe and how to access clean water.
- Invest in local capacity and expertise. The challenges faced vary widely for different communities, and it is important to provide each community with the resources it needs to address the risk it faces. As part of this, efforts should support Indigenous leadership, knowledge and practices to help manage healthy ecosystems.
- Provide guidance to update regulations. Guidance such as building codes and infrastructure regulations will help individuals and communities make informed decisions and address risk appropriately.
- Conduct research and build a broader base of knowledge. There is still much to learn, and it is important to illustrate the exact challenges water systems face and how best to address them.
- Make funding accessible and targeted. Increased earmarked funding for emergency water supplies, housing assistance, and support for water systems, local organizations, and others will help advance solutions.
- Further coordinate efforts to address water and fire issues. Focusing on these interconnected issues together, rather than tackling them separately, can lead to substantial benefits.
To read the specific recommendations identified, read Wildfire and Water Supply in California. Funding for this research was provided by the U.S. Geological Survey through the California Institute for Water Resources.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
You hear it every time drought returns to California: “Turn off the faucet when you brush your teeth.” “Collect shower water in a bucket before it warms up.”
While valuable, these tried and true drought resilience strategies can also deflect attention from the monumental challenges posed by droughts to natural areas, waterways, agriculture and people in California. Far-sighted and discerning management of the state's annual precipitation and groundwater is critical, particularly as droughts become more frequent due to climate change, said Faith Kearns, the academic coordinator of UC's California Institute for Water Resources.
“Like so many big societal problems, we don't want to get caught up believing individual actions alone will solve this problem,” Kearns said. “Conserving water in households can help people feel activated and certainly conserve some water. But, at the same time, it's not enough. We have big, systemic issues to deal with.”
Urban water use in homes, landscapes, schools and businesses amounts to about 10% of total developed water use in California, according to the Northern California Water Association. Irrigated agriculture uses 41%. The remaining 51% is used for water in rivers protected by state and federal laws as “wild and scenic,” water required for maintaining habitat in streams, and water that supports wetlands in wildlife preserves.
Traditionally, when surface water supplies for California farmers are cut during droughts, farmers pumped groundwater to bridge the gap. Over time, many of the state's groundwater basins have become severely depleted. In 2014, during a devastating five-year drought, the California Legislature passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act to regulate groundwater use in the state for the first time. The law aims for sustainable groundwater maintenance by 2040.
“We're in the implementation phase and local groundwater agencies are in various stages of developing and implementing sustainability plans,” Kearns said. “This is an opportunity for public participation to ensure all voices are heard in the effort.”
Of particular concern are underserved rural families who rely on wells for their household water. When the water table drops due to excessive pumping, the families can be left without water for drinking, washing and bathing. Small scale farmers often meet the same fate. Larger, neighboring farms may be able to drill deeper wells.
Wintertime flooding in permeable areas is one way groundwater can be recharged as it is used during the dry season. Getting access to water, developing infrastructure and flooding large farms will allow water to seep back into aquifers. Small-scale farmers can also be involved, said Ruth Dahlquist-Willard, the UC Cooperative Extension advisor to small-scale farmers in Fresno and Tulare counties.
“If there was a way to incentivize recharge on small farms, I think we could really contribute to groundwater management,” Dahlquist-Willard said. “It is not just about how we protect small farmers but also about how we involve them and have something that works for everyone's benefit.”
Fallowing land will likely be needed to meet the groundwater law's sustainability requirements. A 2020 report by UCCE specialist David Sunding and UC Berkeley professor David Roland-Holst, Blueprint Economic Analysis: Phase One Results, estimates about 992,000 acres of California farmland will go out of production, representing $7 billion in lost crop revenue and $2 billion in lost farm operating income.
The public can support smart and equitable water management by learning about decisions being made by their own local water providers and elected government representatives that impact the future of the California water supply. UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and its California Institute of Water Resources have gathered materials to serve as a starting point for understanding and advocating for sustainable water.
Science-based drought tipsheets
Online drought and water management seminar series
Listen to these episodes of the Water Talk podcast:
Episode 02: Ranching and Water in California — Water Talk
Episode 09: Small Farms and Water in California — Water Talk
Episode 10: California Water Policy and Extension — Water Talk
Episode 15: Wild Horses and Water in California — Water Talk
Episode 16: Agriculture in the California Borderlands — Water Talk
Episode 21: Watering Urban Green Spaces — Water Talk
Find more on the UC California Institute for Water Resources website.