Karen Ross on Water Management Restructuring

Karen Ross on Water Management Restructuring

Corryn La Rue
Corryn La Rue
California Secretary of Agriculture Karen Ross joined us in Sacramento at the Agri-Pulse Food and Ag Issues Summit West to talk all things agriculture.

Ross says, water supply reliability in California starts with a state-wide infrastructure update. That includes updating modeling and forecasting, storm water capture, and water recycling.

“What took us by surprise last year is that our modeling is based on historic data, and that’s great except that we don’t have the same kinds of circumstances that we’ve had. So one, how do we do better forecasting? That’s going to be part of an infrastructure change. And then do we have all the tools, the data in the right places to do those real-time analytics. That’s a very important part of infrastructure.”

According to the California Department of Water Resources, the agency currently uses several tools to support water management. Among these tools are the Water Portfolios, Future Scenarios, and Cal-SIMETAW. Water Portfolios show water uses and supplies for 1998-2015. Future Scenarios ask different questions and develop analytical approaches to evaluate future water management conditions. Cal-SIMETAW is the California application of the SIMETAW model, which is a land surface model that specializes in estimating the evaportranspiration and applied water of various crops.

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