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Scaling up climate-adaptation in wildfire-prone watersheds requires innovative partnerships and funding. Water utilities are one stakeholder group that could play a role in these efforts. The overarching purpose of this study was to understand water utility engagement in wildfire mitigation efforts in the western United States. We conducted an online survey of water utilities in nine states and received 173 useable responses. While most (68%) respondents were concerned or very concerned about future wildfire events and the impact of wildfire on their operations, only 39% perceived their organization as responsible for mitigating wildfire risk. Federal land ownership decreased feeling responsible for wildfire mitigation, while concern for and information on wildfire increased feeling responsible for mitigation. The perception of response efficacy of mitigation actions for the 68 water utilities engaged in wildfire risk mitigation activities was very high, with most agreeing that mitigation actions are effective. Self-efficacy to implement mitigation actions, however, was mixed, with most utilities wanting more information on wildfire risk and impacts to watershed services. The most reported wildfire mitigation actions were forest thinning and stream restoration. Water utilities engaging in these actions typically partnered with government agencies or other water utilities to complete the work and funded these activities through water user fees and grants. Our findings suggest that water utility engagement in wildfire mitigation for water security could be increased through providing more assessments of wildfire risk to water utilities and through more outreach and engagement with water utilities operating on federal lands. 

There is an increasing appreciation that food–energy–water (FEW) nexus problems are approaching criticality in both the developing and developed world. As researchers and managers attempt to address these complex resource management issues, the concept of the FEW nexus has generated a rapidly growing footprint in global sustainability discourse. However, this momentum in the FEW nexus space could be better guided if researchers could more clearly identify what is and is not a FEW problem. Without this conceptual clarity, it can be difficult to defend the position that FEW innovations will produce desired outcomes and avoid unintended consequences. Here we examine the growing FEW nexus scholarship to critically evaluate what features are necessary to define a FEW nexus. This analysis suggests that the FEW nexus differs from sector-focused natural resource or sustainability problems in both complexity and stakes. It also motivates two new foci for research: the identification of low-dimension indexes of FEW system status and approaches for identifying boundaries of specific FEW nexuses. 

Abstract Aligning water supply with demand is a challenge, particularly in areas with large seasonal variation in precipitation and those dominated by winter precipitation. Climate change is expected to exacerbate this challenge, increasing the need for long‐term planning. Long‐term projections of water supply and demand that can aid planning are mostly published as agency reports, which are directly relevant to decision‐making but less likely to inform future research. We present 20‐year water supply and demand projections for the Columbia River, produced in partnership with the Washington State Dept. of Ecology. This effort includes integrated modeling of future surface water supply and agricultural demand by 2040 and analyses of future groundwater trends, residential demand, instream flow deficits, and curtailment. We found that shifting timing in water supply could leave many eastern Washington watersheds unable to meet late‐season out‐of‐stream demands. Increasing agricultural or residential demands in watersheds could exacerbate these late‐season vulnerabilities, and curtailments could become more common for rivers with federal or state instream flow rules. Groundwater trends are mostly declining, leaving watersheds more vulnerable to surface water supply or demand changes. Both our modeling framework and agency partnership can serve as an example for other long‐term efforts that aim to provide insights for water management in a changing climate elsewhere around the world.