Wikipedia/Tomas Castelazo

Local actions like lawn-watering restrictions and other calls on residents to reduce their water use aren't what will sustain California in what's expected to be an increasingly dry future, according to a study released Monday night (February 1) by the Public Policy Institute of California.

"Improving the federal role in western drought management is urgent," says Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Institute's Water Policy Center and a coauthor of the report in a release. "Our recommendations focus on modest changes, rather than sweeping initiatives that would require time-consuming legislation or new funding."

Authors note that "the federal government is the West's largest landowner, irrigation water supplier, water information provider, hydropower generator, and environmental regulator.” The release notes that 85 percent of all the water used in the region goes to supporting agriculture: excluding other states, California devotes about 77 percent of its water to farm use, products from which provide about three percent of the state's gross domestic product.

Small changes in farm use, then, could provide a much greater net benefit to water supplies than more drastic cuts from residential consumers who use a small fraction of the overall supply, though concerns remain about the impact of growing urban populations during future droughts.

Among proposed solutions: a stronger federal role in resolving state and local water disputes, such as the long-running water wars in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta; changing agricultural support and subsidy systems to encourage farmers to find innovative ways of conserving water; and re-structuring funding for wildfire management to focus more on fire prevention than fire suppression.

"If we don't change the way the federal government engages with the West on water, lessons of the latest drought will be lost, and we'll have to learn them all over again with the next drought," warns Ellen Hanak, center director and a report coauthor.