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Progress on Research and Advocacy for Clean Water in California’s Central and Salinas Valleys, and an Application with Climate Forecasts for Farmers in Nicaragua

In California, for example, no statewide enforceable limits for nitrate discharges exist, and monitoring is insufficient to understand where and when water is safe for consumption, and whether contamination levels are improving or worsening. As a result, rural, historically marginalized communities have contended with agricultural contaminants like nitrate in their drinking water for decades. Iris Stewart-Frey and SCU’s Water and Climate Justice Lab is part of a coalition that includes the Community Water Center, the California Rural Legal Assistance Inc., Natural Resources Defense Council, and others, to limit nitrogen discharges on farmlands by engaging in workshops, testimony, and public comment letters related to state regulatory processes.

Stewart-Frey addresses these dangers in a recent article, co-authored with John Dialesandro (SCU Environmental Studies & Sciences) and students Samantha Lei and Lilah Foster, which continues the research team’s long-term work on nitrate contamination in drinking water wells in California’s Central Valley. The article evaluates California’s stakeholder process, known as CV-SALTS, which might serve as a model for controlling nitrate contamination elsewhere. Using Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment Program data from 2000–2023, the authors explore multiple factors that contribute to nitrate contamination and how the CV-SALTS process has addressed them. The findings suggest that while uncertainties remain about where nitrate is above safe levels, this contamination has mainly burdened environmental justice communities. In addition, severe drought conditions and the proximity of Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) significantly elevated nitrate concentrations, but have not been monitored or considered sufficiently in the CV-SALTS process. The article develops a new data sufficiency metric to support stakeholder processes in prioritizing areas for monitoring and risk reduction, and offers policy recommendations that could be applied in California and other regions.

Coping with climate change also requires new forecasting tools for farmers. In another long-term project, Stewart-Frey, along with Allan Báez Morales (SCU Frugal Innovation Hub), Qiuwen Li (SCU Art and Art History), Angela Musurlian (SCU Computer Engineering), and student Nicolas Gibson (Web Design & Engineering), recently published an article focused on the value of human-centered design for climate forecasting apps. The article draws on their experience of developing the NicaAgua mobile application for smallholder farmers in Nicaragua, dealing with climate-induced seasonal drought, which began as a senior design project by SCU computer engineering students. Drawing on five years of iterative development with community partner CII-ASDENIC, this study introduces a human-centered design approach for the exploratory phase of digital humanitarian projects. This includes stakeholder analysis, community context overview, user and problem definition, competitive analysis, and rapid prototyping. The case underscores the importance of early stakeholder engagement and offers best practices for translating community insights into actionable, context-responsive digital solutions for underserved communities, particularly in cross-cultural and remote settings.