It wasn’t that long ago that drought dominated the West.
From 2014 to 2017 and again from 2021 to 2023, record after record was broken as clear skies and relentless sunshine became the norm. The governor’s office initiated statewide prohibitions on “wasteful water use,” mandating that cities, towns, and urban water suppliers reduce their potable water consumption by 25 percent. Central Valley farms received 8.7 million acre-feet less surface water than in a normal year, forcing growers to pump groundwater to keep permanent crops alive.
Contrast that with the 2022–2023 water year, one of the wettest and snowiest in California’s recorded history. In a single season, it ended the state’s three driest consecutive years on record, earning the label “weather whiplash” as local governments and utilities rapidly shifted from managing extreme drought to widespread flooding within a matter of months.
California has always been subject to extreme swings in weather, and aggressive conservation goals have long been the tool of choice for bridging the gap.
But conservation alone isn’t enough to solve California’s water woes. In Senate Bill 72 (Caballero, 2025), lawmakers identified that the state needs 9 million acre-feet of additional water supply annually to be sustainable.
Just 1.19 million acre-feet were conserved by urban Californians during the aggressive and painful reduction targets of 2015-2016. That represents 13 percent of what is needed.
Add to this, the new water-savings habits stuck as urban residents have continued to reduce their use. On farms, substantial financial investments have increased adoption of technology and more efficient irrigation practices have resulted in real savings. In fact, in 2023, roughly 56 percent of irrigated acres in California were watered with drip, trickle, or low-flow sprinklers, up from just 15.8 percent in 1991.
Farmers are so precise in how and when they deliver water to their crop’s roots, that even while California’s farm production value rose roughly 38 percent between 1980 and 2015, agricultural water use fell about 14 percent.
The truth is, California doesn’t have a water supply problem. It has a water management problem…and it’s getting worse.
With every new year, our water supply has been shifting from snowpack storage to wetter, rain-driven runoff, and we don’t have enough reservoir capacity to keep up with the deluge. In many situations, wet-year runoff arrives in quantities that create flood risk which threatens local communities.
Rather than pointing fingers, our state’s next governor must act quickly to bring all parties together and solve for how we will capture, move, and bank more water.
California’s population was about 15 million when most major reservoirs were designed and permitted. Today, about 40 million people live in the state, relying on a water system built for less than half that number. Californians have made incredible strides in water conservation for decades, and climate change adds even more pressure to an aging water supply system.
We must find ways to increase water exports from the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, which is how much of the Los Angeles basin receive their water. South-of-Delta Central Valley Project water service contractors received 40 percent or less of contracted allocations in six of the past 10 years. Practical steps to fortify levees, dredging where most impactful, and increase operational flexibility within existing biological opinions can work together to move more water south when conditions allow.
Finally, it’s critical that the state invest in groundwater recharge, banking water in underground aquifers during wet years so it’s available during dry times. Local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) are taking significant steps toward this goal, but without increases in surface water availability, their efforts will have limited impact.
It’s time to stop pretending that conservation alone can secure our water future. California can’t negotiate with the weather, but we can choose to build a system that captures wet-year abundance, stores it responsibly, and delivers it reliability.
The question for the next governor isn’t whether they need to act; it’s whether they’re willing to do what the future demands.
Michelle Paul is the executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition; a nonprofit organization committed to helping the public understand the connection between water and the food grown in California. She can be reached at mpaul@farmwater.org.