Abstract
California’s water rights to appropriate surface water have existed for over a hundred years. Initially, there was an abundance of water as California was developing. As farms and cities became established and water demand increased, water appropriation began to be evaluated based on the available water at points of diversion and by the diversion’s impacts on fish populations and aquatic habitats. Two analyses are used in California to determine if water can be legally appropriated from surface water sources. If new requested diversions fail one or both analyses, the stream system may start to be considered as fully appropriated where no new diverter is permitted to appropriate water from the stream system. Though the analyses adequately address available water supply and the protection of fish populations and aquatic habitats, these analyses do not consider the potential impacts water appropriation has on local or regional public health. Many communities have developed in, or around fully appropriated stream systems and it is unclear the potential impacts water appropriation has on the public health of these communities. This project explores the relationship between fully appropriated stream systems and public health. This project assessed Tuolumne, Mariposa, Madera, and Fresno County, which are neighboring counties in Central California that contain both partial-year and year-round fully appropriated stream systems. These counties use a percentage of their water for the high yielding agriculture industry in the Central Valley (Hanak et al., 2019). These counties also contain a majority of the California communities most affected by pollution and where people are often vulnerable to pollution’s effects as determined by CalEnviroScreen (CES). CES is a public health database that screens California communities to better understand community conditions and where people are vulnerable to the effects of pollution. This project explores the relationship between water appropriation in these counties and public health via regression analysis of the degree of stream miles that are considered year-round and all fully appropriated stream systems (FASS) and CES public health indicators.