Thursday December 4, 2025
Maven’s Notebook —
California’s San Joaquin Basin is at the center of the state’s water challenges, with decades of groundwater overdraft and increasingly severe floods putting water supplies, communities, agriculture, and the environment at risk. The Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) newly released San Joaquin Basin Flood-MAR Watershed Studies assess how climate change is intensifying these water management challenges across the Calaveras, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Merced, and Upper San Joaquin watersheds and identifies strategies to help the San Joaquin Valley prepare and adapt to a more variable future.
“San Joaquin Valley communities will be dramatically shaped by growing extremes in drought and flood, and our capacity to respond to them. The Watershed Studies begin a broad path forward for the Valley – outlining the risk if we do nothing and what we can gain if we begin acting together now,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth. “They show how coordinated watershed investments can protect our water supplies and support agriculture and ecosystems, reduce flood risk and provide our partners the information they need to protect communities.”