I am a casual member of Central Oregon Geosciences Society (COGS). Their monthly presentations can sometimes be far too technical for non-earth scientists, but many are interesting and understandable for people who have a general interest like me. Some of them are focused on hydrogeology where my interest really lies. The most recent presentation was by the Lori Faha from the City of Bend who gave a great overview of their water system. If you want a better understanding of how a city can really effectively manage water you should watch the recording. Her talk gets underway at about minute 17:30. I do have one quibble with Lori’s presentation when she showed the BoR “teacup” diagram of local reservoir levels and implied that since they were mostly full that local irrigators will be in good shape this year. This is not accurate. If you watch the presentation I link to in this recent post, our local watermaster explains that irrigators get water both from reservoirs and “live flow”, water in the Upper Deschutes River. Those flows are far lower than normal and water delivery curtailments to irrigators are already being planned.