The COEQWAL (COllaboratory for EQuity in Water ALlocations) project brings together expertise from across the UC and CSU system, government agencies, and NGO collaborators to advance access to information about California’s water future under a changing climate.
The project will leverage new climate change projections and existing water resource planning models for the Central Valley to explore tradeoffs in water availability outcomes across a range of management scenarios, with an emphasis on providing meaningful, timely, and actionable information for end-users and communities with historically limited involvement in water resources planning analysis. The project aims to develop alternatives for analysis through a participatory co-design process facilitated by engagement with researchers and diverse end-users, including disadvantaged communities, environment organizations, tribes, agricultural groups, municipalities, and water management agencies. Three use cases will focus additional attention on Delta salinity management, Chinook salmon recovery, and drinking water security for vulnerable populations. A library of model scenarios and results will be made accessible through state-of-the-art visualization tools and other summaries targeting end-user interests and objectives.