After nearly four decades studying Californian water management, a return visit in January 2026 left me with a confronting realisation.
California has had its water reckoning and it is acting accordingly.
Across government, agriculture, cities and industry, Californians now treat water policy as the foundation of food production, economic resilience, environmental stewardship and population growth. Crucially, this understanding is shared across society.
What stands out is not a single project, but a culture of collaboration.
State agencies, local governments, irrigation districts, environmental groups and private enterprise are working together to prepare for drought, climate volatility and rising demand. That cooperation is being translated into major, multi benefit infrastructure and thousands of smaller improvements that strengthen the whole system.
The Sites Reservoir, which is delivering 1,850 gigalitres of new off-stream storage, and the Kern Water Bank, capable of storing 1,500 gigalitres underground, show how surplus flows can be captured, banked and redeployed during dry years.
These are pragmatic tools designed to protect communities, farms and ecosystems simultaneously.
Innovation is being layered onto infrastructure: solar panels over aqueducts, in channel turbines, groundwater recharge, and efficiency upgrades across farms and cities.
California is building resilience before crisis arrives.
Australia’s contrast is stark.
While California invests in unity, storage and adaptability, Australia remains trapped in adversarial, outdated and increasingly brittle water policy frameworks.
Energy that should build resilience is instead consumed by legal disputes, rigid targets and administrative complexity.
The result is a system more expensive to operate, more vulnerable to drought, and increasingly disconnected from food security and regional economic outcomes.
California has embraced a truth Australia continues to resist: water policy is social policy.
California is awake.
Australia is still slumbering on a broken mattress of dated, ineffective water policy — and the longer we do, the more painful the awakening will be.
Yours etc.
David Farley
Speak Up deputy chair
17°C