Rachel Becker

Water Reporter

Rachel Becker is a journalist reporting on California’s complex water challenges and water policy issues for CalMatters. She’s covered drought, water standoffs, groundwater depletion, water quality and the world’s biggest dam removal

In 2021 she won first place for Outstanding Beat Reporting from the Society of Environmental Journalists for stories that included deep dives into water contamination in the wake of wildfires and from widespread industrial chemicals

In 2022 Rachel was the inaugural recipient of the Water Education Foundation’s Rita Schmidt Sudman Award for Excellence in Water Journalism, “honoring outstanding work that illuminates complicated water issues in California and the West.”  

Her reporting has also been recognized by the California News Publishers Association, the Online Journalism Awards, the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists, and the San Francisco Press Club. In 2025, her coverage of dwindling groundwater, polluted drinking water and deteriorating ecosystems won a Golden State Journalism Award for environmental reporting

Rachel has a background in biology, with master’s degrees in both immunology and science journalism. She previously reported on climate change and air pollution for CalMatters, and contributed to early coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well. 

Before joining CalMatters, Rachel was a staff reporter at The Verge, where she covered science and health for the news site and for its Webby Award-winning video series, Verge Science. Her byline has also appeared in outlets including National Geographic News, Smithsonian, Slate, Nature, bioGraphic and the YouTube series MinuteEarth.

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Latest Stories

A water faucet in a home in California. March 18, 2022. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters
Sprinklers spray water on a lawn in Palm Springs on Sept. 21, 2021. The biggest increase in January water use was 19% in the desert region, which includes the Palm Springs area and the Imperial Valley. Photo by Taya Gray, The Desert Sun via Reuters
From left, Andy Reising and Anthony Burdock, both Water Resources Engineers in the Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit and Sean de Guzman, right, Manager of the California Department of Water Resources Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit, begin the measurement phase of the second media snow survey of the 2022 season at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada Mountains on Feb. 1, 2022. Kenneth James/California Department of Water Resources
A view of a scarred mountain peak from last summer's Caldor Fire, which burned through El Dorado County near the site of the California Department of Water Resources media snow surveys at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada Mountains on Feb. 1, 2022. The survey is held approximately 90 miles east of Sacramento off Highway 50 in El Dorado County. Kelly M. Grow/California Department of Water Resources
Christina Toms, an Ecological Engineer and Senior Scientist with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, (center in light blue jacket) checks up on a new wetland restoration project she has been overseeing for the last year in partnership with the Army Corp of Engineers, and the National Park Service at Drake’s Beach in Point Reyes on Oct. 21, 2021. Nina Riggio for CalMatters

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