About

Impacts

The San Joaquin Valley is experiencing the impacts of climate change, including severe drought, record temperatures, floods, and wildfires. These climate change impacts are disproportionately affecting our most vulnerable populations, including the elderly, those with health problems, low-income families, communities of color, and residents who lack insurance.

Climate Change

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These changes are mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, industrial agriculture and animal agriculture, which are releasing large amounts of heat-trapping gases and causing the rise in the temperature of the planet. When California is in a drought, farms that rely at least partially on surface water deliveries from the state must turn to groundwater to irrigate their crops. Existing and new, deep wells that are drilled cause groundwater levels to drop, the concentration of contaminants to increase, and nearby communities to lose access to their water altogether.

Facts about the San Joaquin Valley & Groundwater js-hero-timeline

  • Agriculture

    Agriculture is the main economic activity of the San Joaquin Valley and also the largest water user in the region (89%) with the remainder used by cities (4%), managed wetlands (2%), and natural landscapes (4%) (Hanak et al., 2017).

  • Groundwater

    In the San Joaquin Valley, 90% of residents rely on groundwater for part or all of their drinking water and most unincorporated communities are 100% reliant on groundwater.

  • Rural Communities

    The San Joaquin Valley region has the highest concentration of rural disadvantaged communities and many of these communities lack access to basic services such as safe, reliable, and affordable drinking water.

  • Safe Drinking Water

    Hundreds of thousands of San Joaquin Valley residents do not have access to safe drinking water and rely on bottled water. Common chemicals across the San Joaquin Valley rural disadvantaged communities include arsenic, nitrate, 1,2,3-trichloropropane (1,2,3-TCP), chromium VI, bacteria, and high concentrations of sediments.

  • Climate Extremes

    Climate extremes are becoming more frequent, such as the 2012 – 2016 drought when thousands of domestic wells went dry.

  • Dry Wells

    Nearly 1,000 dry drinking water wells were reported in 2021 and 1,459 in 2022.

  • Atmospheric Rivers

    15 atmospheric rivers impacted Central California between October 2022 and January 2023 and flooded communities including Allensworth, Alpaugh, Woodlake, Springville, Porterville, Three Rivers, Lindsay, Planada, and the Tule River Indian Tribe.

  • Drought

    Although the San Joaquin Valley received heavy rainfall from the atmospheric rivers, the drought is not over as groundwater basins are still overdrafted.

  • Land Subsidence

    Extensive groundwater extraction has caused land in the San Joaquin Valley to sink, a process known as land subsidence.

How climate change impacts communities in the San Joaquin Valley

Before 2014, no law regulated how groundwater how groundwater could be used. If someone had access to resources to drill a well, they could pump as much water as they wanted. During the drought from primarily 2012 to 2015, over 2,000 domestic wells went dry in the San Joaquin Valley, causing some families to go without running water for years. This caused economic, emotional, physical, and health impacts locally on low-income communities as well as impacts for the whole state. Drought also affected areas that were already struggling to obtain access to clean drinking water.

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) was enacted into law in 2014 as a three-bill legislative package to address groundwater management.

Now that SGMA is in place, many Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) have developed plans called Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs), which are roadmaps for how Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) will reach sustainability.

As climate change and the ongoing California drought threaten small community water systems and private well owners, the need intensifies for residents to engage and participate in groundwater and regional water planning (like SGMA) to achieve sustainability for their communities. Community residents can work towards equitable representation in groundwater planning through building long-term capacity and increasing resident engagement at various levels from attending key groundwater planning meetings to serving on a board/advisory committee.

Get Involved

There are many opportunities to get involved and share your water challenges and needs. Learn more about how you can serve on a board or committee here.