California's Central Valley
The Central Valley: Tulare Basin

Population
The total population of the Tulare Basin in 2000 was approximately 4 million (Great Valley Center, 2005).
Major Cities
Fresno, Bakersfield, Visalia
Geographic Features
Tulare Lake Basin, Kettleman Hills, Kings River, Kaweah River, Kern River, Tule River, Tulare Lake, Kern Lake, Buena Vista Lake
Climate
The Tulare Basin has mild winters and hot dry summers. Despite transient tule marsh areas, the area is dry and the valley summer heat is intense.
Land Use
About 4% of the basin area is urban. The present-day Tulare Basin has been developed extensively for agriculture and petroleum extraction. Agricultural fields, vineyards, and orange groves are interspersed with oil fields (Parsons, 1987). Grains, cotton, and corn are the main agricultural crops in the Tulare Basin.
Water Use
Until recently, Fresno and Visalia were entirely dependent on groundwater for their supply, now these cities are slowly adding surface water to their supplies. Water used for agriculture in the Tulare Basin constituted 69% of the total water use in 1998 and 86% of the total in 2001 (Great Valley Center, 2005).
Surface water is preferred over groundwater because of relative costs. Uncertainty and limitations of surface-water deliveries from the Delta are of growing concern. Groundwater often is used to replace much of the shortfall in surface-water supplies. Because groundwater is a finite resource, alternate sources of water either are being considered or starting to be used.