Irrigation and Ground-water in California's Central Valley

Project Chief: Claudia Faunt
Project Website

For more than 50 years, California's Central Valley has been one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. Large increases in population have increased the competition for water within the Central Valley and statewide. We plan on developing a numerical model that can be used to quantitatively address groundwater issues in the Central Valley. The proposed work consists of three major tasks. The first task, "texture modeling," will address the objective of developing a better understanding of the internal architecture of the deposits in the Central Valley. The second task, the "Farm Process", will address the objective of developing a systematic approach for estimating water budget components, which in this study will be based upon the consumptive use of water by plants and available surface water deliveries. The third task, "Ground-water Modeling," will address the objective of developing a model at a scale relevant to management decisions, including water availability issues.

Contact Information

Claudia Faunt
Office phone: 619-225-6100

Back to the California projects page