I work as a Graduate Student Researcher under Dr. Julia A. Ekstrom in the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, an the Economy. The work I do concerns drinking water utility management and climate change adaptation. Our research team is working on a multi-year project to understand how small drinking water utilities fared during the most recent drought (2012-2016?). I put the "?" in there because some of these utilities are in fact still dealing with the impacts of the drought. During the summer of 2016, our research team conducted interviews with drinking water utility managers, board members, and operators to better understand management impacts and challenges faced as a result of the drought. As a second phase to this project, we conducted workshops throughout California to hone in on how different socio-ecological regions were impacted differently by the drought. We held three Regional Drought Resilience Workshops: Clear Lake; Modesto; and Salinas. You can read our overviews of these workshops on our Climate Adaptation Program website. We are currently analyzing and writing up our findings, which will be included in a day-long Forum on Drought Resilience for Small Systems to be held on September 20, 2017 in Sacramento, CA. If you would you like more information on this forum, please don't hesitate to reach out to me at mrklasic@ucdavis.edu.
