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86 Part I California Water Pharmaceuticals and a host of other chemicals-often referred to as emerging contaminants-also are causing increasing concern in California(Chapters 3,6). Establishing a better system for protecting water sources from contamination is a major unresolved water policy challenge for California. Uses and Value of Water Water has many uses in California. Households, businesses, industries, and institutions use water in urban areas. Farms use water for crop irrigation and livestock.Water is used to generate power,both directly(hydroelectric genera- tion from falling water) and indirectly(to cool thermal power plants).And,of course,water is essential for healthy aquatic and riparian environments,as well as human recreation. Estimating water use is problematic in California because of a lack of moni- toring and reporting requirements. Table 2.2 summarizes DWWs estimates of the major water supply uses in the agricultural, urban, and environmental sectors for the same eight-year period as Table 2.1. Table 2.2 Average annual water use by sector,1998-2005 Irrigated Agriculture Urban Environmental Land, Net/ Net/ Net/ Hydrologic (1,000s of Gross Net gross Gross Net gross Gross Net gross re ion acres) (maf) (maf) (%) (maf) (maf) (%) (maf) (maf) (0/a) North Coast 330 0.8 0.6 77 0.2 0.1 74 21.0 21.0 100 San Francisco Bay 81 0.1 0.1 96 1.2 1.0 84 0.6 0.6 100 Central Coast 430 1.0 0.8 74 0.3 0.2 67 0.1 0.1 100 South Coast 250 0.8 0.7 87 4.1 3.5 85 0.2 0.1 50 Sacramento River 2,000 8.3 6.6 79 0.9 0.7 79 14.0 7.6 54 San Joaquin River 1,900 7.0 6.0 85 0.6 0.4 59 3.7 1.0 27 Tulare Lake 3,000 10.0 7.7 74 0.7 0.3 36 1.6 0.1 6 North Lahontan 130 0.5 0.4 80 0.0 0.0 50 0.4 0.2 50 South Lahontan 64 0.4 0.3 81 0.3 0.1 52 0.1 0.1 100 Colorado River 610 3.9 3.7 93 0.7 0.5 70 0.0 0.0 - California 8,800 33.0 27.0 82 8.7 6.6 7 41.0 31.0 76 SOURCE:Authors'calculations using regional portfolio data from California Department of Water Resources(2009). NOTE:Urban uses include 0.1 maf/year of gross water use(and no net water use)for cooling thermoelectric power generation. I Some land is cropped more than once during the year,so irrigated crop acreage exceeds irrigated land area.Statewide irrigated crop acre- age is about 9.2 million acres.