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California Water Today 133 <br /> Strengths and Weaknesses in Today's Water System <br /> California's water system today has both impressive assets and significant <br /> vulnerabilities. A major asset is the sophisticated physical infrastructure that <br /> enables water to be delivered to urban and agricultural demand centers and <br /> successfully protects residents from frequent floods. Vulnerabilities in this <br /> infrastructure—which threaten water supplies and increase flood risk—include <br /> a fragile water supply conveyance hub in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, <br /> deteriorating flood control structures,chronic overdraft in some major ground- <br /> water basins,and increasing problems of water salinity and other contaminants. <br /> Another major asset is the resilience of California's economy, which has <br /> shown an ability to adapt and continue to grow,despite increasing water scar- <br /> city. Continued adaptation seems possible, with suitable management and <br /> policy changes, given the economy's decreasing reliance on water as a direct <br /> input into production,the sizable proportion of agricultural water still allocated <br /> to low-value crops,and the large share of urban water now used for landscape <br /> irrigation.However,economic adaptation potential is limited by regional eco- <br /> nomic concerns(which can make agricultural communities reluctant to sell or <br /> divert water from lower-value crops)and difficulties of reducing outdoor water <br /> use by millions of California households and businesses. <br /> For all their complexity,California's diverse water management institutions <br /> also have some strong positive features that can serve the state well in confront- <br /> ing the challenges it faces. The state has many dedicated,highly trained staff <br /> working on all aspects of its water system,and their decentralized governance <br /> means that water managers are quite responsive to local water user needs. <br /> However,this system will fail to satisfy the broader needs of the economy and <br /> the environment without better coordination that aligns management oversight <br /> with the appropriate geographical scale (e.g.,basins and watersheds) and that <br /> connects activities across different functional areas to benefit water supply,flood <br /> protection,water quality, and ecosystems. Similar challenges of coordination <br /> exist among state and federal agencies, which also face resource constraints <br /> and limits on their authority. Inadequate technical information and scientific <br /> capacity is a particular weakness in California's current institutional landscape. <br /> Decentralization,fragmentation,and limited resources to collect and analyze <br /> information on water use and to support solution-oriented science by major <br /> state and federal agencies have hobbled the state's ability to address the major <br />