Sonoma Water deploys HydroForecast Seasonal to improve water supply predictions for Lake Sonoma, Lake Mendocino, and Lake Pillsbury.
We’re thrilled to announce a new partnership with Sonoma County Water Agency to deploy HydroForecast Seasonal to improve water supply predictions for Lake Sonoma, Lake Mendocino, and Lake Pillsbury.
Sonoma Water provides drinking water to over half a million people in nearby communities, manages sanitation, and provides flood protection and environmental services in the Russian River and throughout the region. A leader in innovative water resource management strategies, Sonoma Water is a key founding partner for the Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations (FIRO) collaboration with the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E) that is working to improve reservoir management in increasingly extreme conditions.
Understanding how much water will be available between two weeks and three months into the future is not only important for a variety of water resource management decisions but is also an increasingly challenging task. Seasonal water supply affects decisions around water rights allocations, water availability for agriculture and environmental flows, and ensuring communities have sufficient water. Traditionally, water agencies have relied on historical averages for each period of the year to estimate future flows. Yet drought and extreme conditions mean that the future is less likely to resemble historical years, while increasing water scarcity makes each drop more valuable than ever before. In this context, Sonoma Water is deploying HydroForecast to gain better insights into potential flows so that they can better manage their reservoirs and to make their water resource management systems more resilient to a changing climate.