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In an age when freshwater supplies are under pressure from a growing human population, the alchemic act of turning seawater into drinking water is enormously appealing. Scientists at an East Bay laboratory, meanwhile, are also trying to address water shortages, but to do so, they’re delving into uncharted realms of science and technology. Like Brown’s clunky tunnels, the scientists’ lab-scale project involves passing water through expensive tubes—but the water conveyance tunnels being assessed by researcher Aleksandr Noy and his colleagues are barely one atom wide.

In this episode of “Deeply Talks,” Tara Lohan, managing editor of Water Deeply, and a panel of experts discuss the water issues to keep an eye on in 2018. Tara is joined by Jeffrey Mount, senior fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California, and Kimery Wiltshire, CEO and director of Carpe Diem West.

The city of Oroville sued the California Department of Water Resources on Wednesday over the Oroville Dam crisis, accusing the state agency of mismanaging the dam and knowingly performing inadequate maintenance on its main flood-control spillway. In a blistering lawsuit filed in Butte County Superior Court, the city said DWR encouraged a “culture of corruption” in which supervisors let underlings get away with shoddy maintenance.

A late arrival to winter is taking hold, and every creek, river and waterfall is acquiring its own personality. Some, like Silver Falls in the remote Santa Cruz Mountains, are roaring, having been jump-started by 7 inches of rain in the past week. Others, like Carson Falls in the Marin Watershed, have been brought to life in recent days, including 5.7 inches of rain a week ago Monday, with more on the way Thursday, Friday and early next week.

The millions of trees that died in the Sierra Nevada during California’s five-year drought may have actually helped the state’s water supply once the historic dry spell finally ended, according to a new study. Scientists led by UC Merced’s Sierra Nevada Research Institute examined how much water was being absorbed by plant life in 1 million acres of Sierra forest along the watershed that feeds into the Kings River east of Fresno. The study, published Friday in the journal Scientific Reports, spanned the years before, during and after the drought, which officially ended last year.