California's Biggest Reservoir Is Melting Earlier Every Year
The Sierra snowpack stores a third of the state's water. As it melts sooner, the entire system built around its timing is straining.
By AGUACYCLE News Room
California's water system was engineered around a simple assumption: snow piles up in the Sierra Nevada each winter and melts slowly through spring and summer, delivering water when farms and cities need it most.
When the timing breaks
Warming is upending that. More precipitation falls as rain, snow melts weeks earlier, and reservoirs must release water for flood control before peak demand arrives. Even wet years can leave summer shortfalls.
Banking the surge
The state's answer is to capture high winter and flood flows and bank them underground through managed aquifer recharge — turning a shrinking natural reservoir into a man-made one below the surface.
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