You are now in California and the U.S. category.

Heading back up the hill from the airport, the large digital billboard on Interstate 80 — usually warning us all to be ready to “chain up” due to unsettled weather — seemed like a mixed message from the state of California Sunday night.

“Severe drought … Limit outdoor watering,” the sign displayed. It seemed liked solid advice, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether Caltrans hadn’t gotten the memo that statewide mandatory water restrictions had been lifted. Considering that news, the drought’s over. Right?

A report by the nonpartisan Climate Central says that 11 million people in California are at risk of wildfire and that climate change is lengthening the wildfire season.

Previous reports by researchers have said wildfires in the western U.S. would become more intense, larger, and start earlier than usual as a result of climate change.

A Northern California judge’s ruling could delay construction of two large tunnels to more easily move water from the state’s central valley to the parched south.

The Sacramento Bee reported that the judge invalidated a comprehensive environmental management plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The judge ruled that the plan must be “set aside” until deficiencies he found earlier are fixed. State officials say they will appeal Friday’s ruling.

California’s combination of climate, native ecosystems, and human uses makes water management inherently hard, unsatisfactory, and evolving.  California is doomed to have difficult and controversial water problems. No matter how successful we are.

California is one of the few parts of the world with a Mediterranean climate (Figure 1).  These climates tend to be dry (not much water), attractive places to live and farm (bringing high water demands), with mismatch between wetter winters and dry summer growing seasons.  The scarce water supply in the wrong season for human activities makes human management of water problematic for native ecosystems.