SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA—

A noted Israeli hydrologist is helping drought-stricken California cope with its water crisis.

Eilon Adar, director of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev desert, came to Sacramento, California, recently for a conference on how Israel, no stranger to drought, could help California, now in the fourth year of an historic drought.

"We thought given California's water situation, we're in a very serious drought, and Israel's advanced technology in this area, this would be the perfect sister city event to plan," said Sacramento Jewish Federation president Barry Broad, who helped organize the event.

"Bringing experts from Israel to tell us what are the things we can learn from Israel's longer and more extensive history dealing with life in a permanently arid climate," he said.

In California, hundreds of thousands of people pay a flat rate for their water. That's the same price no matter how much water they use.