Economic analyses are essential in water management and allocation among sectors and regions that face water scarcity. State and local agencies in charge of water management in California play a major role in making appropriation decisions and designing policies on such issues. Economic decisions are even more critical with the predicted, more frequent water scarcity due to population increases and climate change impacting water resources. Since most of the staff members in these agencies are non-economists, they may lack the skills to develop accurate analyses and make economic decisions on water management. In addition, university graduates, to be placed in water agencies after graduation, often lack an economic background from the various courses offered on water issues. For those reasons, we present in this paper the building blocks and content of a water economics and management course targeted toward university upper-level non-economist students while providing details on the weekly course content and learning assignments. In addition, we evaluate course achievement results from a learning assessment survey, comparing the knowledge and understanding gained between the first and last week of the course.

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