Supporting Water Research in California

The California Institute for Water Resources supports academic researchers in California through funding of the Water Resources Research Act. Our grant programs fund projects at University of California campuses, and California State University campuses, and UC Cooperative Extension offices.

WRRA 104(b) Program

Through WRRA's 104(b) program, CIWR supports early-career researchers in California for 2-year projects up to $25,000.

For the 2022-2023 grant cycle, CIWR's currently funded 104(b) projects include:

• Nathaniel Bogie of San Jose State is researching deep groundwater recharge and healthy soil management practices to increase the sustainable use of groundwater. 
   
• Jennifer Duggan of California State University, Monterey Bay is assessing wildlife use of three types of agricultural ditches to improve food safety and water quality.
  
  
• Priya Ganguli and Scott Hauswirth of California State University, Northridge are assessing contaminant distributions and sources in Castaic Lake to identify primary sources of mercury and provide baseline water quality data.
  
  
• Laurie Huning of California State University, Long Beach is using historical data and future projections to better understand drought.
  
  
• Scott Jasechko of UC Santa Barbara is quantifying where water that ends up in rivers and wells originates from to better understand where water goes when it rains.
  
  
• Mallika Nocco of UC Davis is developing climate-smart actions and indicators for increasing soil water capacity by identifying key barriers to the adoption of best practices.
  
  
• Debra Perrone of UC Santa Barbara is characterizing and analyzing legal controls on groundwater extractions to provide a framework of allocation systems to inform management.
  
  
• Steven Sadro of UC Davis is disentangling the mechanisms through which mega-wildfires affect lake productivity to improve management in the face of increasing wildfires. 

Through the 104(b) program, CIWR has funded water-related research projects by early career academic in California since 2011. We maintain a database of past funded projects, which is available to explore.

WRRA 104(g) Program

Through its role within the National Institutes for Water Resources, CIWR administers projects funded by WRRA's 104(g) program in California. Current funded projects focus on topics of water resources management and PFAS.

• HEC-RAS 2D Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) Solver, John Owens, Child Family Professor of Engineering and Entrepreneurship Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UC Davis
  
  
• Fate, Transport, and Transformation of Poly- and Perfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in Horizontal Levees. David Sedlak, Plato Malozemoff Professor, Director of the Berkeley Water Center, UC Berkeley
  

UC ANR Small Grants

In Spring 2023, UC ANR published a request for small grants with the goal of increasing collaboration between cooperative extension researchers and UC ANR's statewide programs. CIWR supported three funded projects that address 21st Century water management and resilience challenges.

Archived Projects

Prior to 2008, the California Water Resources Research Center funded several decades of research across themes that included:

• Hydrology and climate
• Aquatic ecosystems
• Water quality
• Water management
• Water law, institutions, and policy
• Salinity and drainage

CIWR maintains an archive of these funded research projects.