Past and Future Water Use in Pacific Coast States

Book excerpt: We examine socioeconomic factors affecting water demand and expected trends in these factors. Based on these trends, we identify past, current, and projected withdrawal of surface water for various uses in Pacific Coast States (California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington), including public, domestic, commercial, industrial, thermoelectric, livestock, and irrigation. Additionally, we identify projected demands for nonconsumptive instream recreational uses of water, such as boating, swimming, and fishing, which can compete with consumptive uses. Allocating limited water resources across multiple users will present water resource managers and policymakers with distinct challenges as water demands increase. To illustrate these challenges, we present a case study of issues in the Klamath Basin of northern California and southern Oregon. The case study provides an example of the issues involved in allocating scarce water among diverse users and uses, and the difficulties policymakers face when attempting to design water allocation policies that require tradeoffs among economic, ecological, and societal values.