Solutions in our Soil
For our water, food systems, and collective health.
Sustainable Conservation works in the soil-water nexus to understand how improving our soils can help California build a more sustainable water supply and protect water quality.
Soil experts know a lot about how soil can store carbon, but less about how soils can benefit our water supply and quality.
Healthier soil benefits the crops that grow out of it, the water that flows through it, and the people that depend on it. We envision a future where our soils can foster biodiverse ecosystems, build sustainable agriculture, strengthen community and environmental health, and increase our drought resilience.
Solutions in our Soil
Our team focuses on the direct but often overlooked relationship between soil health and water conservation. Watch our video featuring Benina Montes and Andrew Carrol to learn how cover crops can be vital levers to unlock water and soil benefits in their orchards.
Central Valley
Traditional Orchard
Cover Crop Orchard
Illustration: In perennial orchards, cover crops help slow water and improve pathways for infiltration so more water can get in the soil and prevent runoff.
Credit: Darren Vogt
Central Coast
Traditional Annual System
Cover Crop Annual System
Illustration: In annual systems, cover crops can support sustainable nutrient cycling by absorbing and holding onto nitrogen during the rainy season when it could leach into groundwater. Come spring, terminated cover crops can release that nitrogen back to the soil as a nutrient source for crops, decreasing reliance on synthetic fertilizers.
Credit: Darren Vogt
Cover Crops
We built on our 2023 Soil-Water Report with “Cover Cropping in the SGMA Era,” co-authored by researchers and the agricultural support community, to explore the water benefits, policies, information, and resource gaps around cultivating cover crops.
About this reportFoundations for Scaling Up
- Policy and regulations informed by data and field experience
- Grower-friendly guidance based on the best available science
- Support for research to fill the most critical knowledge gaps
Related resources
See updates and media coverage about this project; the list of organizations partnering with us on this work; and reports and publications relevant to soil health.
Soil Health Meets Recharge: Lessons from the Field
Cover crops are a known practice in California agriculture for reducing water runoff, increasing the amount of water that can infiltrate and stay in the soil, improving biodiversity, limiting groundwater…
Improving Recharge Outcomes and Soil Health: Combining Cover Cropping and On-Farm Recharge in California Pistachio Orchards
What if we could make OFR even better? What if we could enhance water infiltration, reduce nutrient leaching, and improve soil health all at the same time? That’s exactly what…
Turning Science into Policy: ETSGSA Pioneers a Water Credit for Cover Crops
Cover crops are a known practice in California agriculture for reducing water runoff, increasing the amount of water that can infiltrate and stay in the soil, improving biodiversity, limiting groundwater…
- San Joaquin Valley Sun
California Water Institute partners with Sustainable Conservation to study on-farm recharge - Ag Alert
Cover crops offer water-holding benefits - Progressive Crop Consultant
Cover Crops, Groundwater and SGMA: A Complex Relationship - Valley Ag Voice
Regenerative Agriculture Offers Long-Term Solutions for Central Valley
- American Farmland Trust
- Braga Fresh Farms
- Burroughs Family Farms
- California Department of Food and Agriculture
- California Department of Water Resources
- California Farm Bureau Federation
- California Natural Resources Conservation Service
- California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
- California State Water Resources Control Board
- CSU Chico
- CSU Monterey Bay
- CSU Sacramento, Consensus and Collaboration Program
- Driscoll’s
- General Mills
- GrizzlyCorps
- Madera Chowchilla Resource Conservation District
- Monterey County Farm Bureau
- National Center for Appropriate Technology
- Point Blue Conservation Science
- Pollinator partnership
- Project apis m.
- Public Policy Institute of California
- Regional Water Quality Control Boards
- Resource Conservation District of Monterey County
- Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops
- Taylor Farms
- The Nature Conservancy
- UC Berkeley, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
- UC Berkeley, Goldman School of Public Policy
- UC Davis
- UC Davis, Dept Land, Air, and Water
- UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
- UC Merced
- UC Santa Cruz, Environmental Studies
- University of California Cooperative Extension
- USDA Agricultural Research Service
- Western Growers
- Wilbur Ellis