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california Water Today 101 For this reason, many ecosystem service valuation efforts focus on a few services that can be most easily quantified and tend to ignore or qualitatively discuss the rest.26 These difficulties notwithstanding, California has much to gain by adopting a more comprehensive approach to assessing the value of ecosystem services. Even where full economic valuation is not practical, an approach that considers nonmarket functions of aquatic ecosystems can inform and guide decisions for water supply and flood management to maximize overall benefits (Chapters 5, 6). Considering the value of ecosystem services comports well with recent state leg- islation and policies seeking to establish “co-equal” goals for ecosystem health and water supply (Chapter 1). This approach also can help to dispel the myth that healthy aquatic ecosystems conflict with a healthy economy (Hanak et al. 2010). Water and Energy Water is heavy; average urban use (about 200 gallons per capita per day) comes to over 1,500 pounds a day. So the energy needed to move water can be consid- erable. This is particularly true for Southern California’s urban water supplies, which often involve lifting large amounts of water over mountains. These pump- ing costs alone offer considerable incentive for water conservation (Wilkinson 2000). In addition to long-standing management concerns about the high cost of energy involved in water production and use (Palmer and Lund 1986), there have been growing policy concerns about greenhouse gas emissions from both the production and use of water. In the latter context, it is frequently reported that water use accounts for roughly 20 percent of the state’s electricity use, making it a target for state policy efforts to reduce emissions (California Air Resources Board 2008). However, public discussions of this issue do not usually recognize that almost three-quarters of water-related energy use occurs in the homes, businesses, offices, and farms of end users (Table 2.5). Less than one-quarter is devoted to operating local, regional, and statewide water infrastructure. Most water-related energy use is in the urban sector. The most energy-intensive urban uses involve water heating, electricity for washing machines, chilling water and ice, and in-building pumps for spas, hot water circulation, evaporative coolers, etc., as well as industrial and commercial processes. Agricultural end 26. A recent study by the Science Advisory Board for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2009) discusses a variety of methods for valuing ecosystem services: (1) measures of public attitudes—surveys and focus groups that elicit public preferences for ecosystem services, (2) economic methods—methods to estimate how much people are willing to spend to avoid losing a service, and (3) civil valuation methods—public referenda or initiatives, which provide informa- tion about how much the voting population values particular services.