The University of California, Davis, is taking a number of aggressive measures to address the current statewide drought. These include:

• Preparing a Drought Response Action Plan, released this week, to cut campus water use by 20 percent during the drought state of emergency.
• Organizing a free, public Drought Summit April 25 at the State Capitol in Sacramento.
• Launching a new website, California Drought Watch.
• Capturing farmer and rancher audio stories of the drought in a project called Farmer and Rancher Voices from the Drought.
• Offering UC Davis faculty and staff experts on drought and water resources for media interviews to better inform the public about the drought’s impacts.

Drought Response Action Plan

Even before the worst drought in California’s recorded history pushed the issue of dwindling water resources sharply to attention this year, the University of California, Davis, was already taking aggressive measures to reduce its water use. Methods such as drought-tolerant landscaping, low-flow fixtures in student housing, and a reverse osmosis system for campus boilers has kept campus water use nearly constant since the 1970s.

Now the university has developed a draft plan to save even more water — striving for a 20 percent cut from its current operations — during the drought state of emergency.

The plan is in response to California Gov. Jerry Brown’s request in early 2014 for state agencies to reduce water use by 20 percent. UC President Janet Napolitano has also urged each of the system’s 10 campuses to take steps to reduce water use.

UC Davis is not significantly impacted by the drought because the campus operates on groundwater, rather than surface water.

“But the state of California is in a drought, and we’re part of a holistic system,” said campus sustainability planner Camille Kirk. “We want to do our part and show people why it’s important to come together and save water.”

The Drought Response Action Plan looks at campus water use over the past 40 years and investigates a set of actions that can be taken during the drought emergency to strive for a 20 percent water savings from calendar year 2013. The actions cover operations, dining services, landscape management, research and agricultural water use, construction, renovations, and more.

Actions include:

• Recycling the water used in the central heating and cooling plant more often.
• Reinvigorating leak detection programs.
• Further reducing landscape irrigation and replacing decorative turf grasses with drought-resistant ground covers.
• Prioritizing maintenance projects that result in both energy and water savings, from among a list of over 45 water-use reduction strategies.

The university cannot predict if it will meet its goal of reduction by 20 percent. Some measures, if performed over a long period of time, could be detrimental to equipment or landscapes.

“We have a goal, for example, of not losing our trees due to under-watering,” Kirk said. “We won’t know until we work through the year.”

Read about campus progress and find the Drought Response Action Plan.

Watch campus water use in real time at the UC Davis Water Dashboard.

Report leaks, broken fixtures and irrigation, and other water waste to Facilities Management by calling (530) 752-1655, filing a work order (requires a UC Davis login and password), or emailing om-customers@ad3.ucdavis.edu.

Send questions, comments and water conservation ideas: savewater@ucdavis.edu.

UC Drought Summit

The UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences is organizing the UC Drought Science, Policy and Management Summit on April 25 at the State Capitol, featuring speakers from the UC campuses and other California universities.

The free, public summit will bring together a wide range of experts in water sciences, water management and policymaking to discuss how best to manage current and long-term water shortages.

Topics range from agricultural production and employment to the California economy, energy production and use, fish and wildlife, water conservation, public health and wildfires. The event will include a review of what university campuses are doing to conserve water and provide water-saving advice for residents, farmers and business owners.

“Given the UC’s unique role and public service responsibility, we called for a summit of faculty from across our campuses and others to explore the best ways to mitigate effects of the current drought and prepare for future water shortages," UC President Janet Napolitano and UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi said in a jointly signed statement.

Register online.

California Drought Watch

Although water is in short supply, UC Davis’ expertise in water-related issues is not. California Drought Watch brings together the university’s globally renowned resources in water sciences, management, law and agriculture to ensure that policymakers and the general public have access to the knowledge, research and technologies that are crucial to addressing the challenge of the state’s drought.

Visitors to the site will find the latest drought research and news headlines, as well as drought management tools from UC Davis experts and water organizations throughout the state. They will discover how UC Davis is cutting back on water consumption, learn about upcoming events like the April 25 Drought Summit, and find out how to reach UC Davis’ top experts in drought and water management. 

“Policymakers and the public need to see, not just be told, that UC Davis is a go-to place on drought,” said Jay Lund, director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “This site should help draw tighter the wide range of work done on drought and related subjects from all across the campus.”

Visit California Drought Watch.

Farmer and Rancher Voices from the Drought

Over the sound of bleating sheep and singing birds, Dan Macon describes how the current drought has affected his sheep ranch, Flying Mule Farm, in the Sierra Nevada foothills: “This is the driest of three dry years in a row for us … Over the last three years, we’ve reduced the size of our flock by half. Because we’ve reduced the size of our flock, I have taken a part-time job and will probably take a second part-time job this spring.”

His is one of several audio stories compiled as part of Farmer and Rancher Voices from the Drought.

A team of UC researchers began the project this spring. Led by Ken Tate, UC Davis professor of plant sciences and rangeland watershed specialist in Cooperative Extension, they use digital tools to capture the voices of farming and ranching families who are battling the worst drought of their careers.

Each week, the team posts new tracks to SoundCloud — an audio-streaming service and social network where users can upload, record and share tracks they create. Friends, loved ones and colleagues of ranchers and farmers are also invited to interview them and post tracks to the SoundCloud group page. Several of the farmers and ranchers share practices that have worked for them so that others struggling with the drought can better cope.

Members of the state’s farming and ranching community also share stories, photos and comments at the project’s Facebook group page.

The project was inspired by Caroline Henderson’s “Letters from the Dust Bowl,” which documented the voices of farmers and ranchers leaving dust-covered Oklahoma in the 1930s in search of a better life in California.

Hear and post stories on SoundCloud.

Farmer and Rancher Voices from the Drought is on Facebook.