Urban Water Management Plans

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Urban Water Management Plans are prepared by urban water suppliers every 5 years to support long-term resource planning and water supply sustainability.

Urban Water Management Plans (UWMPs) are prepared by urban water suppliers every five years. These plans support the suppliers’ long-term resource planning to ensure that adequate water supplies are available to meet existing and future water needs. 

 

The requirements for UWMPs are found in two sections of California Water Code, §10610-10656 and §10608.  Every urban water supplier that either provides over 3,000 acre-feet of water annually, or serves more than 3,000 urban connections is required to submit an UWMP.

 

Within UWMPs, urban water suppliers must:

 

  • Assess the reliability of water sources over a 20-year planning time frame
  • Describe demand management measures and water shortage contingency plans
  • Report progress toward meeting a targeted 20 percent reduction in per-capita (per-person) urban water consumption by the year 2020
  • Discuss the use and planned use of recycled water

The information collected from the submitted UWMPs is useful for local, regional, and statewide water planning.

DWR’s role

 

DWR provides guidance for urban water suppliers by preparing an UWMP Guidebook, conducting workshops, developing tools, and providing program staff to help water suppliers prepare comprehensive and useful water management plans, implement water conservation programs, and understand the requirements in the California Water Code that regulate Urban Water Management Planning.

 

DWR then reviews the submitted plans to make sure they have addressed the requirements identified in the Water Code and submits a report to the Legislature summarizing the status of the plans for each five-year cycle.

Urban water suppliers submit their UWMPs to DWR through the secure WUEdata portal. Access into this portal is restricted to water suppliers, their authorized representatives, and DWR. DWR’s webinar on how to submit UWMPs through the WUEdata portal is available on the UWMP playlist of the DWR YouTube site.

View 2020 UWMP reference materials by selecting the blue hyperlinks directly below.


Training Webinars. Between December 2020 and February 2021, DWR hosted a set of nine special topic training webinars. The training webinars are recorded and posted to the DWR YouTube page for public access. During the training webinars, we review planning tools, provide examples, and address participant questions. The following are focus topics from each webinar:

  • Training Module 1 - Demonstrating Reduced Delta Reliance (Appendix C)
  • Training Module 2 - Using the Optional Planning Tool for Drought Risk Assessment
  • Training Module 3 - Methods for Estimating Service Area Population
  • Training Module 4 - UWMP Energy Use Reporting Training
  • Training Module 5 - Calculating Compliance with Water Use Targets (SBX7-7)
  • Training Module 6 - Baselines and Targets for SBX7-7
  • Training Module 7 - Considering Climate Change
  • Training Module 8 - How to prepare a Water Shortage Contingency Plan
  • Training Module 9 - Preparation, Adoption and Submittal
  • Training Module 10 - How to Submit a UWMP to DWR

All 2020, 2015, 2000 and 2005 UWMPs submitted to DWR are available on the WUEdata Portal.

Aggregated data from the 2020 and 2015 tables of submitted UWMPs is available on the WUEdata portal.

Select data for the 2010 UWMPs may be downloaded from the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) Open Data Portal. For more information, see the 2010 UWMP data in the CNRA Open Data Portal.  

For additional records (including those UWMPs prior to 2005), please submit requests for documents through the Public Records Request Portal.

As required by California Water Code, DWR must submit a report to the legislature describing the status of submitted UWMPs, statewide progress toward meeting the targeted 20% reduction in water use by 2020, and exemplary elements of submitted plans.  These reports summarize the status of the planning cycle UWMP submittals received at the time of the preparation of the Legislative Report and they document key highlights in the UWMPs as determined by DWR.

To request a copy of a Legislative Report not listed above, please submit requests for documents through the Public Records Request Portal.

You may download UWMPs submitted for prior years by selecting the year of interest:

 

 Access all other digital documents including methodologies, guidebooks, standardized table templates, drafts, red-line versions, and other associated urban water management planning documents:

 

For additional information, search the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) Open Data Portal. Search for the term “Urban Water Management Plan” or “UWMP” to locate the information of interest.

 

For additional documents, please submit requests through the Public Records Request Portal.

Contact Us

UWMP Events

Informational webinar for urban retail water suppliers (URWS) and interested parties on the Commercial, Industrial, and Institutional (CII) Landscape Area Measurement (LAM) Land Use Classification Dataset (LUCD) project.
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