California's (CA) cloud-free summers, alluvial soils, wet winters, and mountain runoff are well suited for intensive agriculture and specialty crop production, allowing the state to produce roughly 15% of the total US agricultural exports. At the same time, the long hot and dry summers bring extreme levels of evaporation, which coupled with a lack of summer rain, makes the region reliant on energy-intensive transport and pumping of water for irrigation. 19% of CA’s electricity goes to water-related uses, of which 37% is used for moving water and various on-farm purposes. Annual groundwater pumping averages 38% of the state’s water supply.
CA relies heavily on runoff from montane forestlands and subsequent storage in reservoirs to meet these agricultural water demands. These forestlands provide 50% of CA’s total runoff, and rank second in their importance nationally with regards to agricultural lands irrigated by mountain runoff. Current and increasing water and energy limitations will force resource managers and agencies to make decisions to balance the demand for reliable and potable water, electricity generation, and agricultural production.
For better system monitoring, we propose to develop a Coupled Human and Natural System (CHANS) model framework to investigate the FEWS (Food-Energy-Water System) nexus, and a user-friendly decision support system. This will promote more resilient FEWS decision-making by the resource managers and agencies. Future progress requires a holistic implementation across the entire FEWS. The FEWS nexus provides a unifying framework for research, which can illuminate and identify novel management strategies that stakeholders can adapt to meet future food, energy, and water needs.
