BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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| SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER |
| Senator Fran Pavley, Chair |
| 2011-2012 Regular Session |
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BILL NO: SB 846 HEARING DATE: April 26, 2011
AUTHOR: Berryhill URGENCY: No
VERSION: March 25, 2011 CONSULTANT: Newsha Ajami
DUAL REFERRAL: No FISCAL: Yes
SUBJECT: California Water Plan: water data
BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LAW
Current law requires that the Department of Water Resources
(DWR) prepare the California Water Plan every five years. The
most recent plan was released in 2009; the next update is due in
2013.
Current law also states that the water plan "is accepted as the
master plan which guides the orderly and coordinated control,
protection, conservation, development, management and efficient
utilization of the water resources of the state." As a part of
preparing the plan, and one year before issuing the next update
of the plan, DWR is required to disclose the plan's underlying
assumptions and estimates. Specifically, DWR is required to
release data on all of the following:
(1)Basin hydrology, including annual rainfall, estimated
unimpaired streamflow, depletions, and consumptive uses.
(2)Groundwater supplies, including estimates of sustainable
yield, supplies necessary to recover overdraft basins, and
supplies lost due to pollution and other groundwater
contaminants.
(3)Current and projected land use patterns, including the mix of
residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, and
undeveloped lands.
(4)Environmental water needs, including regulatory instream flow
requirements, nonregulated instream uses, and water needs by
wetlands, preserves, refuges, and other managed and unmanaged
natural resource lands.
(5)Current and projected population.
(6)Current and projected water use for each class of use
(interior/exterior residential, commercial, industrial, open
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space, & agriculture):
(7)Evapotranspiration rates for major crop types, including
estimates of evaporative losses by irrigation practice and the
extent to which evaporation reduces transpiration.
(8)Current and projected adoption of urban and agricultural
conservation practices.
(9)Current and projected supplies of water provided by water
recycling and reuse.
The 2009 water plan update discusses potential of creating a
Water Planning Information Exchange System (Water PIE) a
centralized planning framework including data from federal,
state and local agencies and also private entities. According to
the DWR's website, PIE is expected to collect and share data,
and network existing databases and websites. It uses GIS
software to improve analytical capabilities, and to develop
timely surveys of statewide land use, water use, and estimates
of future implementation of resource management strategies.
Water PIE still a pilot project, and does not include much of
the available data.
PROPOSED LAW
This bill would require DWR to include in the California Water
Plan an assessment of the state's water data system.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT
According to the author water information is collected by
numerous state agencies and there is little or no coordination
among these agencies. The author recommends that the plan
include an assessment of water information in the state in order
to develop a centralized and standardized water data system.
According to the Northern California Water Association (NCWA)
"water resources managers benefit from good information
management as the foundation for their decision-making, as well
as providing confidence to the general public that water
resources are being managed in a sound and thoughtful manner. We
therefore encourage more concerted efforts to advance
information management as the core foundation for improving
water resources management in California."
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION
None received.
COMMENTS
Is this bill really needed?
The author is interested in insuring that DWR has a set of tools
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that would centralize, standardize and analyze available
statewide water data in a timely manner to ensure for the best
decision making practices. DWR would likely argue that they are
well on the path to doing just that.
As noted above, the department has already taken the initiative
to create the Water PIE closely resembles the characteristics of
a water data system as defined above. Also, current provisions
in the law (§10608.52 of the Water Code) require the department
to develop a standardized format for on water-use data
collection that can be expanded to other forms of water
information.
Room for Improvement
Nevertheless, the water data system (or Water PIE), and hence
the water plan itself could be improved.
Centralize Data. Many different public and private entities
gather water information throughout the state:
The State Water Resources Control Board :water rights
and water quality
The State Department of Public Health: information on
Public Water Systems (PWS)
The Department of Fish and Game: minimum flow
The urban water utilities: short term and long term
water supply and demand, including conservation and
recycling levels.
Federal agencies also directly or indirectly gather
considerable water data throughout California:
Ground observations (e.g. US Geological Survey- surface
water, groundwater and water quality) or
Satellite and aircraft remote sensing programs (e.g.
NASA).
In order to make the available data accessible in a timely and
usable manner, it needs to be assembled, centralized and
standardized. DWR, in preparing the plan could be required to
communicate and collaborate with all the relevant water
agencies in order to develop a strategy to do this. As noted
above, DWR is already required to develop a single
standardized water use reporting form in consultation with the
board, the California Bay-Delta Authority or its successor
agency, the State Department of Public Health, and the Public
Utilities Commission.
New Technology. In the 2009 update of the plan, the department
described existing information gaps and technical challenges
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the state is facing. However they failed to suggest innovative
strategies to address these gaps and challenges.
Readily-available satellite and aircraft remotely sensed data,
perhaps, can be used to fill in some of the information gaps.
For example, crop evapotranspiration can be estimated and
derived from satellite data collected by MODIS (NASA). Various
state-of-the-art post-processing scientific techniques have
been developed by researchers can be employed to analyze these
data. The plan can discuss various strategies to take
advantage of these data.
Amendments to address these issues are suggested below.
Related Bills
SB 571 (Wolk) puts the California Water Commission (§ 150 of the
Water Code) in charge of updating the plan every five years.
Among other provisions, it would also require the plan to
include reports developed by the department and regional water
planning agencies under the Water Resources Investment Planning
Act. However, this bill would modify also the requirements for
the contents of updates to the plan. Should both bills pass the
committee, the committee may wish to recommend to the authors to
work together in order to resolve possible future conflicts
between provision of both bills.
SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS
AMENDMENT 1
On page 2, line 19, after the period, insert:
The department shall identify and evaluate the tools that
would collect, centralize, standardize and analyze the
available water information throughout the state in a
timely manner. The department shall include a discussion of
advance data acquisition technologies and outline
strategies to utilize such information to improve
efficiency of water resource management. In conducting the
assessment, the department shall collaborate with the
state, federal and local agencies to assess the existing
catalogue of water information are being collected
throughout the state and identify existing information
gaps.
SUPPORT
Northern California Water Association (NCWA)
OPPOSITION
None Received
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