California’s water future isn’t fixed. It’s being written right now – through policy choices, infrastructure decisions, and allocation tradeoffs that will shape landscapes and communities for generations. The question is: who gets to help write it?
COEQWAL, the Collaboratory for Equity in Water Allocations, was built on the premise that the answer should be all of us. A partnership among UC Berkeley researchers, state agencies, and community groups, COEQWAL uses CalSim3, California’s primary water planning model, to envision and evaluate alternative water futures under a range of climate, policy, and infrastructure scenarios. Those futures aren’t just handed down from a modeling team; they’re co-created with the people who will live them.
Results are shared through a public data platform where anyone can explore, filter, and interact with scenario outcomes through data visualizations and storytelling tools designed to reach and engage diverse audiences.
Join us for a Data for Lunch with UC Berkeley’s Ted Grantham, who leads COEQWAL, as he shares what it looks like to bring communities, researchers, and decision-makers together around a shared vision for California’s water future. And what’s possible when they do.
In this session, you’ll learn:
- How COEQWAL models alternative water allocation scenarios under future climate conditions
- How the project’s public data platform makes scenario outcomes accessible to non-technical users
- What approaches the team uses to engage diverse communities in participatory water planning
- Key findings on equity and resilience tradeoffs emerging from the research
Why This Matters
The models that shape California’s water decisions have historically been the domain of engineers, economists, and state planners. COEQWAL is changing that, not by simplifying the science, but by opening it up. When communities can see the tradeoffs, interrogate the scenarios, and contribute to the vision, water planning becomes something done with people rather than to them. That shift is what building the water future we deserve looks like.
About the Speaker
Ted Grantham is an Associate Professor of Cooperative Extension in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on the ecological and physical dynamics of river ecosystems, with a commitment to translating science into sustainable water management solutions in a changing climate. He co-directs the Berkeley Freshwater Group and serves as an Adjunct Fellow at the Water Policy Center of the Public Policy Institute of California.
Presentation Recording
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About Data for Lunch
Data for Lunch is a free and dynamic virtual event series for water professionals, researchers, policymakers, and other partners to explore and discuss the latest water-related datasets, technologies, and governance innovations.
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Funding for this project has been provided in full or in part from the Budget Act of 2022 and through an agreement with the State.