Erik POrse

Erik Christian Porse

Director, California Institute for Water Resources, and Associate Cooperative Extension Specialist

Ph.D. Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, University of California Davis. 2014
M.P.P. Science and Technology Public Policy, George Mason University. 2005
B.S.E. Acoustical Engineering and Music, University of Hartford. 2002
Water resources management and policy, systems analysis, urban water, asset and utility management, public policy, water resource systems analysis, watershed
  • CA INSTITUTE FOR WATER RESOURCES

Erik Porse is the Director of the California Institute for Water Resources and an Associate Cooperative Extension Specialist in UC ANR. Erik is an engineer, environmental scientist, and policy analyst who focuses on water and environmental management. Since 2011, Erik's work in California has included studies on safe drinking water, efficient urban water use, sustainable groundwater management, water reuse, beneficial uses of stormwater, environmental finance, and water resource systems analysis.

Publications

  1. Courtney Crosson, Stephanie Pincetl, Caroline Scruggs, Neha Gupta, Rashi Bhushan, Sybil Sharvelle, Erik Porse, Andrea Achilli, Adriana Zuniga-Teran, Gregory Pierce, Dominic L. Boccelli, Charles P. Gerba, Melinda Morgan, Tzahi Y. Cath, Bruce Thomson, Steve Baule, Steve Glass, Mark Gold, James MacAdam, Luke Cole, Mead Mier, Catlow Shipek, and Thomas Meixner. (2025). “Acceptance of a Net Zero Urban Water Future: Challenges and Strategies for a Sociotechnical Shift of Water Systems”. Frontiers in Water. 7(25)
  2. Rosenberg, David, Anabelle Myers, Reza Morovati, Collins Stephenson, Hadia Akbar, and Erik Porse. "Reasons We Have Hope for Consensus on Colorado River Management”. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. (2026). 152(1).
  3. Porse, Erik, Greg Pierce, Faith Kearns, Edith de Guzman, Camilo Salcedo, and Hope Hauptman. "Adapting urban water supply infrastructure and policies for wildfire in the 21st Century.” Environmental Research Letters. (2025). October 2025.
  4. Prakash, Divya. Erik Porse, Mehdi Nemati, Rachel Shellabarger, and Ariel Dinar. "Tracking Nitrogen Policy and Practices: Lessons from California’s Central Valley Growers.” Agricultural and Resource Economics ARE Update. (2025). Vol. 29, No. 1. Sept/Oct 2025.
  5. Prakash, Divya. Erik Porse, Mehdi Nemati, Rachel Shellabarger, and Ariel Dinar. "Adoption Patters of On-Farm Nutrient Management Practices and Nitrogen Application Rates in California’s Central Valley.” California Agriculture. (2025). October 2025. 79(2).
  6. Erik Porse. Jonathan Kaplan, Khalil Lezzaik, David Babchanik, and Patrick Maloney. "Quantifying Replacement Rates from Indoor and Outdoor Urban Water Conservation Rebates in California.” Journal of the American Water Resources Association. (2025). Volume 61, Issue 2. April 2025.
  7. Erik Porse. "Fifty Years of Water Research Projects in California: Keyword Analysis and Qualitative Coding with Natural Language Processing (NLP) Models. Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education (forthcoming).
  8. Gross, Marie-Philine, Alvar Escriva-Bou, Erik Porse, and Andrea Cominola. "CaRDS-the statewide California Residential water Demand and Supply open dataset." Scientific Data 11, no. 1 (2024): 632.
  9. Courtney Crosson, Stephanie Pincetl, Caroline Scruggs, Neha Gupta, Rashi Bhushan, Sybil Sharvelle, Erik Porse, Andrea Achilli, Adriana Zuniga-Teran, Gregory Pierce, Dominic L. Boccelli, Charles P. Gerba, Melinda Morgan, Tzahi Y. Cath, Bruce Thomson, Steve Baule, Steve Glass, Mark Gold, James MacAdam, Luke Cole, Mead Mier, Catlow Shipek, and Thomas Meixner. (2024). “Advancing a Net Zero Urban Water Future in the United States Southwest: Governance and Policy Challenges and Future Needs.” (2024). Environmental Science and Technology Water.
  10. Qing Shuang, Ring Ting Zhao, and Porse, Erik C., “Cluster Analysis and Predictive Modeling of Urban Water Distribution System Leaks with Socioeconomic and Engineering Factors.” (2023). Water Resources Management. Volume 38. Pages 385-400.
  11. Porse, Erik C., “Systems analysis of metropolitan-scale reuse with effects on water supply resilience and water quality.” (2023). Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems. 1-23.
  12. Porse, Erik, Jonathan Kaplan, Harold Leverenz, Caitlyn Leo, Dakota Keene, David Babchanik, Erick Eschker, and Jonathan Kaplan. (2023). “Adapting Wastewater Systems in California for Water Conservation and Climate Change.” Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure.
  13. Porse, Erik, Chingwen Cheng, Sara Hughes, and N. Claire Napawan. (2022). Urban water management, planning, and design: Links, opportunities, and challenges. Frontiers in Water, 4, 1010318.
  14. Porse, Erik C., Maureen Kerner, Joel Shinneman, Jonathan Kaplan, Samuel Stone, and Mary Cadenasso. (2022). “Stormwater Utility Fees and Household Affordability of Urban Water Services”. Water Policy.
  15. Babchanik, David, Danielle Salt, Brian Currier, Maureen Kerner, and Erik Porse. (2022). “Municipal Spending for Stormwater Management in California: Categorization and Trends Analysis”. Environmental Management. 69(6), 1053-1065.
  16. Porse, Erik C, Cristina Poindexter, Christian Carleton, and Michael Stephens. (2021). “Climate Change Risk Assessment and Adaptation Costs for Stormwater Management in California Coastal Parklands.” Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure. 1-14.
  17. Li, Dongyue, Ruth Engel, Erik Porse, Jonathan Kaplan, Steve Margulis, Dennis Lettenmaier. (2021). “Stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic reduced urban water use.” Environmental Science and Technology Letters. 431-436.
  18. Porse, Erik C., Eric Fournier, Dan Cheng, Hannah E. Gustafson, Felicia Federico, and Stephanie Pincetl. (2020). “Net Solar Generation Potential from Urban Rooftops in Los Angeles.” Energy Policy. 142. July 2020.
  19. Porse, Erik C., Kathryn B. Mika, Alvar Escriva-Bou, Eric Fournier, Kelly T. Sanders, Edward Spang, Jennifer Stokes-Draut, Felicia Federico, Mark Gold, and Stephanie Pincetl. (2020). “Energy Use for Urban Water Management by Utilities and Households in Los Angeles”. Environmental Research Communications. 2020: 2.1
  20. Porse, Erik. (2019). "Merging Network Governance and Systems Analysis for Urban Water Management." Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems. 2019: 1-19.
  21. Fournier, Eric, Felicia Federico, Erik Porse, and Stephanie Pincetl. (2019) “Effects of building size growth on residential energy efficiency and conservation in California.” Applied Energy. Volume 240. 446-452.
  22. Pincetl, Stephanie, Thomas W. Gillespie, Diane E. Pataki, Erik Porse, Shenyue Jia, Erika Kidera, Nick Nobles, Janet Rodriguez, and Dong-ah Choi. (2019) "Evaluating the effects of turf-replacement programs in Los Angeles." Landscape and Urban Planning. 185: 210-221.
  23. Shuang, Qing, Hui Jie Liu, and Erik Porse. "Review of the Quantitative Resilience Methods in Water Distribution Networks." Water 11.6 (2019): 1189.
  24. Porse, Erik and Stephanie Pincetl. (2018). “Effects of Stormwater Capture and Use on Urban Streamflows.” Water Resources Management. 33.2 (2019): 713-723.
  25. Pincetl, Stephanie, Erik Porse, Kathryn B. Mika, Elizabeth Litvak, Kim Manago, Kartiki Naik, Terri Hogue, Mark Gold, Tom Gillespie, and Diane Pataki. (2018). “Adapting Urban Water Systems to Manage Scarcity in the 21st Century: The Case of Los Angeles.” Environmental Management. 63.3. pgs 293-308
  26. Porse, Erik, Mika, K. B., Williams, R., Gold, M., Blomquist, W., & Pincetl, S. (2018). “Groundwater Exchange Pools and Urban Water Supply Sustainability: Modeling Directed and Undirected Networks.” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 144(8), 04018040.
  27. Porse, Erik, Kathryn B. Mika, Elizaveta Litvak, Kimberly F. Manago, Terri S. Hogue, Mark Gold, Diane E. Pataki, and Stephanie Pincetl. (2018). “The Economic Value of Local Water Supplies in Los Angeles.” Nature Sustainability, May. doi:10.1038/s41893-018-0068-2.
  28. Porse, Erik. (2018). “Open Data and Stormwater Infrastructure in Los Angeles: Implications for Green Infrastructure and Sustainability”. Local Environment. 1-13.
  29. Derenski, Joshua. Erik C. Porse, Hannah Gustafson, Dan Cheng, and Stephanie Pincetl. (2018). “Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Aggregated Energy Use Data in Los Angeles Schools.” Energy Efficiency. 11(2). P. 485-497.
  30. Porse, Erik C., Kathryn B. Mika, Elizabeth Litvak, Kim Manago, Kartiki Naik, Madelyn Glickfeld, Terri Hogue, Mark Gold, Diane Pataki, and Stephanie Pincetl. (2017). “Systems Analysis and Optimization of Local Water Supplies in Los Angeles.” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. 143(9).
  31. Porse, Erik C., Joshua Derenski, Hannah Gustafson, Zoe Elizabeth, and Stephanie Pincetl (2016). “Structural, Geographic, and Social Factors in Building Energy Use: Analysis of Aggregated, Account-Level Consumption Data in a Megacity”. Energy Policy. Vol. 96. September 2016. Pg. 179.
  32. Pincetl, Stephanie, Erik C. Porse, and Deborah Cheng (2016). “Fragmented Flows: Water Supply in Los Angeles County”. Environmental Management. 58(2). Pg. 208-222
  33. Porse, Erik C., Madelyn Glickfeld, Keith Mertan, and Stephanie Pincetl. (2015) “Pumping for the Masses: Evolution of Groundwater Rights in Metropolitan Los Angeles.” Geojournal. DOI: 10.1007/s10708-015-9664-0.
  34. Porse, Erik C., and Jay Lund. (2015) “Network Analysis and Visualizations in California Water: Linking connectivity and resilience.” Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. 142.1 (2015).
  35. Farzan, Shahla, Derek Young, Allison Dedrick, Gabriel Sampson, Matt Hamilton, Erik Porse, and Peter Coates. (2015) “Western Juniper Management: Assessing Policies for Improving Greater Sage-Grouse Habitat and Rangeland Productivity.” Environmental Management. 56:675-683.
  36. Porse, Erik C., and Jay Lund (2015). “Network Structure, Complexity and Adaptation in Water Resource Systems.” Civil Engineering and Environment Systems (Special issue on Resilience). 32(1-2). 143-156.
  37. Porse, Erik C., Samuel Sandoval Solis, Belize Lane. (2015). “Integrating Environmental Flows into Multi-Objective Reservoir Management for a Transboundary, Water-Scarce River Basin: Rio Grande/Bravo.” Water Resources Management. February 2015. 2471-2484.
  38. Porse, Erik C. (2014). “Risk-based Zoning for Urbanizing Floodplains.” Water Science and Technology. Volume 70, Issue 11. (Special Issue on Urban Water Management). Pg. 1755-1763.
  39. Lane, Belize. A., Samuel Sandoval-Solis, and Erik Porse (2015). “Environmental Flows in a Human-Dominated System: Evaluating Integrated Water Management Strategies in the Big Bend Reach of the Rio Grande/Bravo Basin.” River Research and Applications. 31(9). Pgs. 1053-65.
  40. Porse, Erik C. (2013). “Stormwater Governance in Future Cities.” Water. Volume 5, Issue 1. March 2013.  Pg. 29-52.

Recent Reports

  1. Greg Pierce, Edith DeGuzman, Erik Porse, Faith Kearns, Daniel Coffee, and Camilo Salcedo. (2026). (2025). Considerations and Pathways for Potential State Oversight of Community Water Systems’ Wildfire Fighting Efforts in California. March 2026.
  2. Divya Prakash, Erik Porse, Rachel Shellabarger, Mehdi Nemati, and Ariel Dinar. (2025). Analysis of Relationships in Farm Size, Crop Diversity, and Nitrogen Applications Through Irrigated Lands Reporting. December 2025.
  3. Greg Pierce, Erik Porse, Faith Kearns, Edith DeGuzman, Camilo Salcedo, Jennifer Gorman, and Ariana Herandez. (2026). Water Systems’ Wildfire Fighting Capacities and Expectations. January 2026.
  4. Cassio Madrazo, Erika, Sam Sandoval Solis, Erik Porse, and Riley Currey. (2025). California Wastewater Needs Assessment: Baseline Survey. California Institute for Water Resources. University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Report to the California State Water Resources Control Board. May 2025.
  5. California Institute for Water Resources. (2025). California Institute for Water Resources 2024 Annual Report. . May 2025.  
  6. Nitrogen and Irrigation Initiative Impact Report. (2024). Nitrogen and Irrigation Initiative Progress Report: Fall 2021-Summer 2024. (Co-Author). Prepared by the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the California Institute for Water Resources. Winter 2024.
  7. California Institute for Water Resources. (2024). California Institute for Water Resources 2023 Annual Report. May 2024.
  8. California Institute for Water Resources. (2023). The Climate Smart Agriculture Program at UC ANR: 2019-2022 Report. Prepared by the California Institute for Water Resources. Prepared for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. June 2023.