Challenging California’s Water ‘Scarcity’ Narrative

California doesn’t have a water scarcity problem. It has a distribution problem, according to Nícola Ulibarrí, whose new research is reshaping how policymakers think about one of the state’s most pressing challenges.

In a report commissioned by UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab, Ulibarrí argues that California’s existing water infrastructure already collects enough water to sustain all state residents. The real crisis, says the UC Irvine associate professor of urban planning and public policy, is that thousands of Californians remain disconnected from that abundant supply.