We Need to Start Budgeting Water Like We Budget Our Expenses

By Margaret Clune Giblin, Center for Progressive Reform. Posted February 11, 2009.

One logical response to the constant news of the economic recession is cutting back on discretionary purchases and developing a household budget.  That is, if we know that times are tough and that we may encounter difficulties sustaining the lifestyle we've grown accustomed to, we take stock of our circumstances and plan for the future.  We look at our current income and expenses, project our future income as best as we are able, and adjust future expenses in the budget to match future income.

What if, instead, in the face of all the economic indicators that tough times are ahead, we stuck our heads in the sand, continued spending as always (or even increased spending) and hoped for the best?  Most would probably agree that at best, it would seem a risky path to tread. 

And yet, that's the path we've chosen to take when it comes to dealing with the threat that climate change poses to many resources we depend on each and every day.  As surely as the economic evidence shows that we're in a recession, the scientific evidence shows that climate change will affect our natural resources, with many such effects already being felt. 

Freshwater resources are an increasingly scarce commodity, particularly in the arid West.  Even without the complicating effects of climate change, demand on water from an increasing population would intensify water scarcity.  Global warming will hasten that process.  In its Fourth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change explained that surface water availability will decline as precipitation variability and drought increase with the changing climate. 

On January 30, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on an example of exactly this type of climate-induced reduction in water supply.  After a particularly dry January, the water content of the snow (that is, the snowpack) in the Sierra Nevada mountain range is down by nearly 40 percent.  The failure of the arid days of January to replenish the "backbone of the state's water supply," the Chronicle explains, will "almost certainly" push California into a third year of drought.  Added to existing pressures on the state's water system, the drought is forcing local communities to take drastic measures.  On February 2, the Sonoma County Water agency announced mandatory water rationing – reductions of 30 to 50 percent – for 750,000 residents in portions of Marin, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties.

Returning to the household budget analogy, this might be one way to handle a reduced income -- when the situation presents itself, cut all expenses by 30 to 50 percent.  Without advance planning, it may be that there isn't much of an alternative to that approach -- by necessity, if income decreases by 40 percent, so must expenses, across the board.  However, if households had a crystal ball of sorts, and could know months or years in advance that income would decrease by 40 percent, it might make more sense to take a more carefully calibrated approach.  To borrow the parlance of the 2008 presidential campaign, one might choose to use a scalpel rather than a hatchet in adjusting expenditures – careful analysis of all expenses might allow for some expenses to be cut by more than 40 percent or eliminated altogether, while ensuring that other expenses could continue to be fully paid. 

When it comes to water management, legislation recently passed by the U.S. Senate would attempt to substitute careful data collection and analysis for a crystal ball.  The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, S.22, is a nearly 1,250-page bill that's perhaps best-known for the numerous additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System it would make if passed.  Among its many other provisions (it's called "omnibus" with good reason), is Title IX, Subtitle F, "Secure Water."  (The text was first introduced in 2007 by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) as the "Science and Engineering to Comprehensively Understand and Responsibly Enhance (SECURE) Water Act.")  The bill would create programs aimed at improving understanding of critical aspects of the nation's water resources -- availability and use of existing water resources and the impact of climate change on those resources -- with the ultimate goal of facilitating better adaptation to climate change. 

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Margaret Clune Giblin, J.D., M.C.P., is a Policy Analyst with the Center for Progressive Reform.

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