As climatologists and water experts predict another dry year for California, a new University of California, Davis study evaluates the possibilities of increasing water storage capacity. Jay Lund, director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, explains.

"We found that the maximum storage capacity that the main part of the state could utilize is maybe five, six million acre foot. And that would be about a 15 percent expansion on the current amount of surface storage that we have."

The report calls for a more integrated approach to surface and groundwater water storage where new storage projects are planned, designed and operated as components of a statewide water system.

"Right now when we have storage proposals, we look at one project at a time. And we don’t really look at how to best integrate it into the whole system. Really what we want to know is what portfolio of storage and conveyance and water demand projects would you want to have for the whole system; for the economic purposes of the state, for the environmental interests of the state."