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For years, water use has generally been described in terms of acre-foot per a certain number of households, keying off the image of an acre-foot as a football field a foot deep in water. The acre-foot yardstick has been a reliable standby for water agency officials to explain water use to the public, said Bill McDonnell, water efficiency manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, but “it was not super science. The number of people living under one roof has increased due to skyrocketing housing prices and the sluggish pace of new-home building, McDonnell said, adding that the average household in MWD’s service area has a little more than three people. In the dense urban environment of San Francisco, with its minimal outdoor irrigation, the daily per capita use is 50 gallons and an acre-foot annually supplies six households of three people each, according to Will Reisman, press secretary at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

The town of Florence, nearly smack in the middle of the state’s Pacific coast, has received only 33in of rain so far this year. NIDIS estimates 3.8 million people in Oregon are experiencing drought conditions, which is 99 percent of the state’s population. The dry conditions and heat have also led to a busy wildfire season, with firefighting costs in the state setting a new record of $514 million for the year. In a report issued Oct. 18, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center said there is a 70–75 percent chance of El Niño forming by late fall.

In the San Francisco Bay Area alone, smokers are estimated to litter 3 billion used filters every year, and no amount of research, campaigning, legislation and education can stifle this waste stream. We know cigarette butts contain toxic chemicals, and because they break down in the environment, they probably cause both physical and chemical problems when animals ingest the plastic fibers,” Sutton says. The precautionary principle says that even without specific data or proof of a health hazard, you can assume contamination is happening because of the fact that you have toxic chemicals coming out of cigarette butts and entering our water,” he says. Cigarette butts are often found in them, Sommers says, and very rough calculations suggest the screens are preventing several million of the toxic stubs from entering San Francisco Bay each year.

California grows 80 percent of the world’s almonds, generating $11 billion annually for the state’s economy. The California almond community began investing in water research in 1982 to determine if a then-new irrigation method – microirrigation – could work in almond orchards without negatively impacting yields. The Almond Irrigation Improvement Continuum, created by irrigation experts, is a roadmap for California almond farmers to accelerate adoption of research-based, water-efficient practices and technology. To support water sustainability in California, almond farmers are exploring how California’s almond orchards can be leveraged to replenish underground aquifers.