The Resource Conservation District of Santa Cruz County, working with stakeholders of the Community Water Dialogue, facilitated the development of a Covered Fallow Plan for the Pajaro Valley. The plan comes in response to landowner and grower interest in exploring rotational fallowing as one of many actions for conserving water. The results of this planning process can inform future incentive programs.
Managed Aquifer Recharge is the deliberate infiltration and storage of surface water in aquifers through passive infiltration basins or dry wells for future recovery and use. The Managed Aquifer Recharge Action team works to identify and implement projects that abate groundwater overdraft of the Pajaro Valley hydrologic basin using groundwater recharge methods. The team has a goal of achieving 1000 AF of recharge per year through 10 managed aquifer recharge projects. Learn more about this team’s accomplishments and ongoing projects here.
This project involves installation of soil moisture tension probes and a network of communication towers to transfer data in real time to growers for improved irrigation decision-making. Early adopters are seeing 15-30% water savings with no yield loss. Through a combination of landowner donations, private contributions and grants, the Community Water Dialogue has succeeded at installing communications towers to network nearly all of the Pajaro Valley and make wireless irrigation technology more accessible to growers. This network drastically reduces the investment required by growers. Growers within the network simply rent or purchase Hortau monitoring stations (which include two soil moisture tension probes and a soil temperature probe).
The Big Projects Action team serves as the liaison group between the CWD and larger water projects occurring by other agencies in the Pajaro Valley including the PVWMA. Learn more about this team’s accomplishments and ongoing projects here.
Technical and financial assistance is available for growers in the Pajaro Valley to evaluate their irrigation systems and improve water use efficiency. Read more about trainings, technical support, and financial assistance available.