Water Stress and a Changing San Joaquin Valley

Research publications reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders or of the staff, officers, advisory councils, or board of directors of the Public Policy Institute of California. [...] ORG/WATER Water Stress and a Changing San Joaquin Valley 4 Introduction The San Joaquin Valley—a region stretching from the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers in the north to the Tehachapi Mountains in the south—is a global agricultural powerhouse. [...] NOTES: The figure reports the share of irrigated farms for the eight San Joaquin Valley counties, and the share of irrigated acreage by farm size reported to the 2012 agricultural census. [...] In the early 1900s, the region also began to export some water to the San Francisco Bay Area, as both the City of San Francisco and the East Bay Municipal Utilities District built reservoirs and aqueducts to tap San Joaquin River tributaries. [...] This is damaging infrastructure, including the large aqueducts of the CVP and the SWP, flood channel capacity in portions of the San Joaquin River, and local water delivery systems.22 And since 2014, the drying up of more than 3,100 domestic and small community drinking water wells within the region has raised immediate public health concerns.23 In fall 2014, these conditions spurred the enactment.