Managing Water and Land Use Transitions in the San Joaquin Valley

by Dr. Bradley Franklyn, Research Fellow, Water Policy Center - Public Policy Institute of California

Wednesday, January 21st @ 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

CHASS INTN 4023

ABOUT THE SEMINAR: California’s San Joaquin Valley—the nation’s most productive agricultural region—contains roughly 4.5 million irrigated acres that generate about $40 billion of revenue annually. Yet the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) will require substantial reductions in groundwater pumping, potentially reducing irrigated acreage by 10–20 percent by the 2040s (Escriva-Bou et al., 2023). Existing projections largely emphasize water supply constraints and assume historic crop patterns, management practices, and prices, which potentially underestimates the Valley’s adaptive capacity. Emerging opportunities—including novel crops like agave, expansion of water-limited cropping systems, water trading, and managed aquifer recharge—could maintain more productive land while reducing the cost of transitioning to sustainable groundwater use.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Dr. Bradley Franklin is a research fellow at the PPIC Water Policy Center. He is an agricultural and environmental economist who focuses on ways to inform the design and implementation of public policy in natural resource management. His research covers a range of topics, including the use of market instruments to secure water for environmental use, sustainable groundwater management, irrigated agricultural production, water recycling and urban water markets, urban heat islands, and climate change adaptation in fisheries. He has worked on water resource issues in a number of places, including California, Australia, and India. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of California, Riverside.

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