ABSTRACT
California’s extensive system of major statewide and region-al-scale water infrastructure, together with its robust institutional infrastructure for water management, were developed in response to long-recognized needs to connect locations of water supplies with areas of water supply deficiencies and to deal with temporal variability in precipitation. Managing water in California is about managing for the extremes—droughts and floods. The historical context for development of the state’s management capacity has set the stage for dealing with another stressor being added to an already significant list of water supply and flood risk reduction chal-lenges—that of adapting to extreme events related to climate change. California has put in place a framework for climate change adaptation, one that will facilitate res-ponding to expected long-term impacts such as loss of mountain snowpack and the storage capacity it provides for water supply and flood management purposes. All views expressed in this chapter are the author’s; nothing herein represents views of the California Department of Water Resources or the State of California.
