BY MICHAEL FERNANDEZ ON AUGUST 13, 2025

California and the broader Southwest are in the grip of a deepening water crisis. Decades-old infrastructure built for predictable snowmelt and steady seasonal rains has proven ill-equipped to handle the extreme swings between severe droughts and atmospheric rivers now ushered in by climate change. Surface reservoirs lose billions of gallons each year to evaporation, imported supplies become cost-prohibitive in dry years, and overdrawn aquifers compound scarcity, leaving many rural and high-desert communities with unreliable access to clean, affordable water.

Cadiz, Inc. has responded to this stark reality with its Mojave Groundwater Bank, an underground storage and delivery system sited on a 30,000-acre property in the Mojave Desert. Unlike open-air reservoirs, this approach secures water in naturally recharging aquifers, preserving water for drinking, irrigation, and emergency reserve.  With a capacity of one million acre-feet and 30 million acre-feet already stored, the Bank will ensure supply during the driest periods, offering a climate-resilient resource that could serve more than 400,000 people each year.