Climate Action: Water - Battery Powered

Water – and the struggle for it – are foundational to the physical and cultural landscape of the western United States.

As the West was settled, the country poured enormous investments into the physical infrastructure to capture, store, and transport water, transforming large parts of the region from desert into fertile agricultural land and eventually populous cities. Meanwhile, complex policies were enacted to control access to and ownership of that water. These policies and legal structures were developed in a very different era, one that could not have anticipated today’s population or water needs. They are outdated and in many cases lead to deeply inequitable and irrational water uses.

"In the East, to 'waste' water is to consume it needlessly or excessively. In the West, to waste water is not to consume it – to let it flow unimpeded and undiverted down rivers." ~ Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert

Today, climate change is increasing aridity across the region and leading to more frequent and prolonged droughts. The persistent “megadrought” in the Southwest, which began in 2000, has been the driest 23-year period in the region’s history since at least A.D. 800. Researchers attribute around 40 percent of the extended drought to human-caused climate change. In California, the period from 2020-2022 set the record for the three driest years on record, surpassing the previous record from 2013-2015. And while it may be tempting to consider the past winter’s historic precipitation across parts of the West as a sign that the tide is turning, experts caution that recent events are unlikely to alter the region’s long-term trajectory.

Already high and rising demands on limited water resources threaten the region’s tenuous grasp on water security. The West is the second fastest-growing region in the U.S., and the demands on our supply of water, electricity, and food will only increase as the population continues to rise. As aridification – the long-term process of a region becoming increasingly dry – persists, we will need to act quickly to find new and diversified water sources and to conserve more.

These tensions will affect low-income, immigrant, and Indigenous communities and communities of color first and worst, manifesting as threats to their basic needs. Increased water stress will further undermine access to safe and affordable drinking water. Scarcity will impact the affordability of necessities like water and food, further weaken water quality, and threaten livelihoods.

Despite the very real crisis the West now faces, there is a way forward. We are not out of ideas or opportunities. We may find that in shifting our mindset from constantly seeking more and new water to making better use of what we have, the opportunities are endless. The region can rebalance its water usage to support thriving cities and a productive economy, while restoring the health of its waterways and landscapes.

"If we fail to achieve the positive future for water, it won’t be because we can’t. It will be because we didn’t." ~ Peter Gleick, The Three Ages of Water

To secure the West’s future, longstanding policies, water management regimes, and infrastructure will need to get renegotiated, redesigned, and reimagined. This will require unprecedented shifts in norms and major increases in innovation and funding. The work is already underway. In late May, for example, three of the Colorado River Basin states agreed to an historic consensus-based proposal to conserve at least 3 million acre-feet of water, which will prevent system reservoirs from reaching critically low levels. Recent legislation including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, are providing billions of dollars for groundbreaking investments in water infrastructure, resilience projects, ecosystem restoration, and other critical projects.

Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell, a key Colorado River reservoir that has seen its water level plummet after two decades of drought. (Source: LightHawk Conservation Flying/The Water Desk via the Water Education Foundation)

Between the political opportunities that the recurring water crises provide, the potential to leverage major public funding for infrastructure (both built and natural), and the imperative to address historic inequities, now is an opportune time rebalance and build the resilience of water systems across the region. We will explore the theme of Climate Action: Water through the following guiding question:

What will it take to ensure a secure water future for the U.S. West?

Our Focus

We have selected three focus areas for this theme that reflect the greatest risks and opportunities across the region. Each of these areas represent a major user of water resources and each is in urgent need of investment and attention.

Importantly, water knows no boundaries. While we will use these distinct areas of focus to guide our work, we acknowledge that water itself is a cross-cutting element and that effectively managing it will require cross-sector collaboration. In many cases organizations working on these issues will work across these focus areas and others to achieve durable outcomes.

Agriculture. Agriculture consumes 80 percent of water used in much of the U.S. West. Much can be done to improve the sector’s water use efficiency, such as innovative water trading and water banking schemes and incentives to fallow land and to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices and technology. We will support organizations working to research, advocate for, trial, and implement these solutions across the region.

Drinking Water. Across the U.S. West, basic access to safe drinking water is not guaranteed. In California alone, 1 million people do not have access to safe drinking water. We will support organizations advocating for basic access to safe drinking water for all, investment in resilient water systems, and capacity building for resource managers and utilities.

Freshwater Ecosystems. The West’s freshwater ecosystems—rivers, lakes, and wetlands—have been grievously altered over the last century and continue to be under tremendous strain. At the same time, they are a powerful climate solution. We will support the protection and restoration of critical freshwater ecosystems.

Paths not taken. There are nearly infinite ways to approach the needs and opportunities associated with the theme of Climate Action: Water. We had to make tough choices to constrain our areas of work, setting aside some impacts beyond aridification (i.e., flooding, storms, and disasters). The West is a heterogenous region, and by focusing on the aridification and water stress, we are most often talking about the Mountain West, Southwest, and California. This region is not the most water stressed geography on Earth—however, we have decided to focus on the West as its challenges and solutions are most tangible to our location in the Bay Area, and there is an opportunity in the U.S. to model successful adaptation to climate change where we have ample tools and resources to do so.

We gratefully acknowledge CEA Consulting for their support in researching and preparing this Issue Brief.