Urban Water Demand in California to 2100: Incorporating Climate Change

Good report from the Pacific Institute - Link.  From the introduction to the report:

 

 

"Global climate change poses risks to California’s water resources, though most recent research

has focused on supply-side changes including reduced snowpack, earlier snowmelt, and more

extreme floods and droughts. Yet along with these shifts in the quantity, timing, and reliability of

freshwater supplies, climate change will also have important impacts on water demand. Fifteen

years ago, an American Water Works Association committee on climate change found that

climate change “could also alter water demand, supply, and quality” (AWWA 1997). In 2007,

the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies commissioned a study on the impacts of climate

change on water agency operations. The authors concluded that the impacts are likely to be

significant, and will increase the cost of operations for most utilities. When it comes to climate

impacts in the next 20-50 years, “utility planners will have to grapple with many of them

prospectively rather than as phenomena that are already observable” (Cromwell et al. 2007)."