Resources Roundtable: California in Drought

California is experiencing its worst drought in recorded history, but droughts are not new to California. Over the past 150 years, during which California’s water infrastructure and its expectations for water supply developed, may have actually been a wet anomaly in California’s deeper history of aridity. Adding climate change-induced variability, drought will be part of the ‘new normal’ for California.

Agenda

9:00 – 10:00 AM

“A perpetual Drought” Panel Discussion

UC Berkeley Professor Lynn Ingram and Kamyar Guivetchi Manager of Division for Statewide Integrated Water Management, Department of Water Resources (DWR)

10:00 – 10:30 AM

Coffee Break

10:30 – 11:00 AM

Keynote Address by David Sedlak

Malozemoff Professor in Mineral Engineering at UC Berkeley, Co-director of Berkeley Water Center, and Director of Institute for Environmental Science and Engineering (IESE) and author of Water 4.0

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

“Regional Drought, Local Impacts” Panel Discussion

Moderated by Isha Ray from UC Berkeley with panelists Colin Bailey (Executive Director, Enviromental Justice Council for Water) Peter Yolles (Founder of WaterSmart Software) Conner Everts (Southern California Watershed Alliance) and Celeste Cantu (General Manager, SAWPA)

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Lunch

1:00 PM – 2:15 PM

“Looking forward – policies, investments and strategies to better weather drought” Panel Discussion

Discussion moderated by Michael Kiparsky, Associate Director of the Wheeler Institute at Berkeley Law with guests Peter Gleick (President, Pacific Institute) and Bob Wilkinson (Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, UCSB) and John Colemen (President, Association of California Water Agencies)