| Between two expert panels, discussions will focus on the State's existing system yield, it's current status and limitations. System yield is the foundation for all California water resources management. Yet it is being diminished and shifted temporally through a variety of factors. This Symposium will discuss those changes, the potential risks to water rights, current inadequacies in existing infrastructure and operational frameworks in identifying and allocating that yield, how to improve system function and gain multiple resource benefits (e.g., enhanced reservoir coldwater pool assets, energy generation through pumped storage hydro, ASR programs using surplus flood/stormwater flows, ag/urban recycled water, etc.), and how the current new era of water supply development can meet this new paradigm of system yield enhancement through such actions as new high elevation water storage. Poignant questions will be raised such as, "Why are contractors ever shorted when, on average, only about 40 percent of the annual precipitation is retained for managed use?" Why, for example, should farmers continue to take cuts in deliveries when excess river flows, above those required for minimum instream needs, occur every winter? We will also raise awareness on the issue of water rights by asking such questions as, "Are long-standing water rights at risk due to the increasing demands being placed on system yield from population growth, environmental regulation and the anticipated diminishment from climatic perturbations?"
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