Tag Archives: Water

New Guidance Released to Help California Growers Maximize Water Benefits of Cover Crops

May 6, 2025

Sustainable Conservation and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), along with UC ANR and other partners, have released a new guidance document — Cover Cropping in California’s Water Scarce Environments — to help growers harness the many benefits of cool-season cover crops while reducing water use. As farmers adapt to a changing water supply, this guide provides practical considerations about cover crop species, timing, and management to reduce runoff, increase infiltration and water retention, and bolster overall soil health.

How Executive Order N-16-25 Enables Recharge During Floods

February 28, 2025

The Newsom Administration has taken an important step toward improving California’s flood safety and water resilience by issuing Executive Order (EO) N-16-25, which waives the requirement for local planning documents to include flood threshold definitions that indicate when groundwater recharge diversions can occur. This temporary waiver allows recharge diversion efforts to begin when local agencies…

Proposition 4: Holistic, Sustainable, and Equitable Water & Climate Investments

October 21, 2024

Proposition 4 offers a significant opportunity to mitigate these disasters and bolster our state’s environmental resilience for decades to come. This critical funding initiative — which will appear for all Californians on the November ballot — presents historic investment in nature-based solutions to safeguard both natural resources and the communities that rely on them.

“Recharging California” Webinar Highlights Featuring Climate Scientist Dr. Daniel Swain

October 3, 2024

Photo: Kelly M. Grow / California Department of Water Resources On September 4th, we had the distinct privilege of kicking off our 2024 fall webinar series, “Recharging California,” with a conversation between Sustainable Conservation CEO Ashley Boren and Climate Scientist Dr. Daniel Swain. Daniel holds joint appointments as a research scientist within UCLA’s Institute of…

Ashley Boren Guest Op-Ed for the Sacramento Bee: “A resilient water future for the San Joaquin Valley is within reach. Here’s how”

July 15, 2024

Sustainable Conservation’s CEO Ashley Boren recently contributed a guest opinion column that has been published in the Sacramento, Modesto, and Fresno Bees as well as the Merced Sun-Star. The piece, titled “A resilient water future for the San Joaquin Valley is within reach. Here’s how”, emphasizes how 2023 was a banner year for groundwater recharge, yet there’s more we…

“Replenishing Groundwater in the San Joaquin Valley” PPIC Report Key Takeaways

June 27, 2024

Photo: Xavier Mascareñas / California Department of Water Resources This month, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released a report on groundwater recharge — the process of replenishing underground aquifers with surface water — in the San Joaquin Valley in 2023. The report offers a rare viewpoint, allowing us to see just how far…