AWRCOS — Adaptive Water Resilience and Climate Operations in the Southwest
Advancing Climate-Resilient Water Management in the San Joaquin Valley
Starting in the San Joaquin Valley. Built to scale across California.
Why the San Joaquin Valley, and Why Now?
The southwestern United States is grappling with escalating water resource management challenges. Droughts are intensifying and snowpack is in long-term decline,1 2 and groundwater reserves that took centuries to fill are being drained faster than they can recover. Nowhere is this more acute than California’s San Joaquin Valley (SJV), which produces over $25 billion in food annually3 and has lost more than 120 km³ of groundwater over the past century.4
AWRCOS is funded through the NSF Regional Resilience Innovation Incubator (R2I2) and based at San Diego State University. Rather than prescribing a fixed set of solutions, the project develops Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) , flexible, community-grounded frameworks for water management that can evolve as conditions, needs, and priorities change. Tools like Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations (FIRO)5 and Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR)6 7 serve as concrete examples of these pathways , tested with local partners, not imposed from outside. All of this work is structured through a Water Oriented Living Lab (WoLL) model built on a Quadruple Helix framework, bringing together academia, government, industry, and communities as equal partners in research, design, and implementation.
Water Oriented Living Labs (WoLLs)
WoLLs are real-life, water-oriented environments that function as field labs. They bring together water authorities, communities, researchers, and industry to co-create and test solutions grounded in the practical Value of Water.
Phase I Objectives
How do water extremes and policy failures compound each other?
Water extremes and groundwater loss do not happen in isolation. We are studying how they compound each other, and how policies like SGMA8 add pressure on top of an already stressed system.
What adaptive pathways work for the SJV, and what gets in the way?
Working directly with local water managers, we are identifying and testing adaptive management strategies for flood and drought response. Tools like FIRO and MAR are concrete examples , but a key part of this work is understanding the real barriers to adoption across a broader set of strategies, using a Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways (DAPP) approach.
How do we turn complex forecasts into decisions people can act on?
Climate science is only useful if people can act on it. We are building decision-support tools (DCAIS)9 10 that translate complex forecast data into clear, timely information for water managers, farmers, and policymakers.
Who needs to be at the table for water management to actually change?
Good water management takes more than good science. We are building a network of climate scientists, hydrologists, engineers, social scientists, water agencies, tribal nations, and community members who are working on this problem together.11
Climate & Water Challenges in the Southwest
The San Joaquin Valley is not facing one water problem. It is facing several at once. AWRCOS is designed to work across all of them.
Institutional Partners
AWRCOS is a partnership between universities, federal agencies, and technology companies working across the Southwest.
Meet the Team
Events & Workshops
Our kickoff meeting has wrapped. Watch the recording, download the slide deck, and stay tuned for upcoming co-design workshops.
AWRCOS Kickoff Meeting
Our first webinar introduced the AWRCOS team, Phase I objectives, and our approach to water resilience in the San Joaquin Valley. Thank you to everyone who joined.
Co-Design Collaboration Workshop: Coming Soon
We are planning our first co-design workshop, where water managers, researchers, community members, and policymakers will work together on the tools and approaches AWRCOS is developing. Dates and format are still being finalized. If you want to be involved, let us know through the survey.
Details Coming Soon Co-Design WorkshopStakeholder Survey
We want to hear from you. This short survey (about 10 minutes) asks about water challenges in the Central Valley and beyond, what tools and information you currently rely on, what gets in the way of better water management, and how you would like to be involved.
Let’s Work on This Together
Corrie is the point of contact for AWRCOS. Her inbox is open.
clmonteverde@sdsu.edu