By Peter B. Moyle, Karrigan Börk, Christine A. Parisek, Fabian A. Bombardelli, Jay Lund, and Andrew L. Rypel
A panel blog
Water systems run on ideas, among many other things. Water ideas are frequently discussed for improving and adapting California management to meet current and future challenges. Some ideas seem to receive too much attention, and others receive too little attention. For this post, we solicited ideas from some UC Davis Center for Watershed Science members that seem to deserve more attention.
Peter B. Moyle, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_B._Moyle
Restoring Lake Tulare. Lake Tulare was once the largest freshwater lake in western North America but it was drained for agriculture, starting in the late 19th century. The basin has partially refilled periodically during wet years and this year appears to be an exceptionally wet year that may take it to the highest levels since the basin was first drained. Climate change models (El Niño) indicate there is a reasonable chance another wet year could happen soon, before the lake could be completely drained, potentially increasing the extent of the lake to record levels. The time may be right to restore the lake to a permanent feature on the landscape. This would be one of the biggest lake restoration projects ever attempted and potentially become a model for terminal lake restoration across the globe. Currently millions of dollars are being spent raising levees and many more will be spent on ‘recovery’ actions if present trends continue. The Governor should appoint a ‘Blue Ribbon’ commission to investigate the potential/feasibility of restoring Lake Tulare compared to alternative futures of the lake basin before draining of the lake begins. Two recent blogs provide background information, but this would be the first formal investigation into letting the lake live more permanently as a natural lake.
Lund, J. 2023. Tulare Basin and Lake – 2023 and their future. https://californiawaterblog.com/2023/05/07/tulare-basin-and-lake-2023-and-their-future/
Moyle, P.B. 2023. Lake Tulare (and its fishes) shall rise again. https://californiawaterblog.com/2023/04/16/lake-tulare-and-its-fishes-shall-rise-again/
Developing a system of Freshwater Protected Areas. The California Natural Resources Agency has taken leadership in an ambitious, systematic plan to protect biodiversity and natural habitats in California, the 30×30 initiative. The plan seems to fall short for California’s fresh waters, however. This is where many California endemic species are found, most conspicuously fish (80% endemic) which largely have special protection, one species at a time, through the state and federal Endangered Species Acts. For the 30×30 initiative to work for fishes and other aquatic organisms in California, protected aquatic ecosystems must be distributed across California’s diverse landscape. To resolve this issue, California needs a system of Freshwater Protected Areas (FPAs), akin to the Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) that have been designated along the California coast. It is clear that our current ad hoc system of Wild and Scenic Rivers, reserves, parks, and similar areas is not working well for native fishes. A better system is needed that takes into account increasing water diversions, depletion of aquifers, large-scale fires, extended drought, and other challenges. See Moyle et al (2020) for more details: https://californiawaterblog.com/2020/05/03/protecting-aquatic-biodiversity-in-california/
Karrigan Börk, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and School of Law, https://law.ucdavis.edu/people/karrigan-bork
Require habitat management as a condition on water rights. Water use and its associated infrastructure provides huge benefits to California, but it also imposes significant costs on California’s waterways, aquatic ecosystems, and many communities. Water users generally do not bear any financial burden associated with these costs, and so their decisions about how much water to use do not reflect the real cost of the water to society. Although some water users have begun to explore ways to mitigate the impacts of their water use through mechanisms like the voluntary agreements, these efforts are the exception, and they exist outside of the water rights law context, making for slow and clunky implementation. Fortunately, California’s State Water Resources Board has the authority to impose conditions on water rights, and these conditions could include requirements that water right holders engage in ecosystem management to mitigate the impacts of their water use. For example, when Los Angeles sought to continue its diversions from the Mono Lake tributaries, the Water Board required the city to restore the degraded streams and improve nearby wetland habitat as a condition of their continued water withdrawals. This had the dual benefits of requiring LA to bear more of the true costs of their water use and of improving habitat conditions in the tributaries and wetland ecosystems. Unfortunately, this decision seems to have been a one-off, and the Water Board has not imposed similar conditions on other water rights. The Water Board should implement this approach much more widely to provide better economic signals to water users and to improve ecosystem-based management in California.
For more information, see Brian Gray, Jennifer Harder, and Karrigan Bork, Implementing Ecosystem-Based Management, 31 Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum 215-281 (2021) and Karrigan Bork, Water Right Exactions, 47 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 63 (2023).
Impose time limits on water rights. Many of California’s water rights are old, granted in an era when there were no major environmental laws, women and non-white people were not allowed to vote, and the term “ecosystem” didn’t even exist. Mining and agriculture dominated the state’s economy, and the state government was more concerned with rapid growth than almost anything else. These origins result in water rights that incentivize overuse, award the public’s water on the basis of who used it first, fail to adjust for climate change, and that contain no inherent environmental protections. And these historic rights still dominate California water law; most urban and agricultural water use is based on either riparian rights (which do not require state permits or environmental analysis) or pre-1914 rights (which predate the state’s permitting system). Most modern water conflicts are rooted in the conflict between the ideology motivating these early water rights and modern water use, environmental, and justice priorities. Many states face similar conflicts, and most states in the eastern United States have found an effective way to address them. Through their “regulated riparianism” water right systems, Most eastern states now issue water rights that must be renewed after a set period of time, generally 10 to 20 years. This approach allows water users to make a return on their investment without locking the state’s precious water resources into long term uses that may not make sense anymore. Courts have consistently approved of similar approaches to regulating water rights, due to the unique nature of water and water rights, suggesting that the California legislature likely has the power to try something similar. The Water Board could also do something on its own with a similar impact, perhaps by periodically reviewing whether existing water rights are still reasonable, whether they are wasteful, and whether they still comply with the public trust doctrine. The Board already has authority for these actions. Periodic review of water rights would allow California to update its water rights system for the 21st Century.
For more information, see Karrigan Bork, Time Limits for Water Rights, 37 Nat. Resources & Env’t 17 (2022) and Emily Derrick, Introducing Time-Limited Permits to California’s Riparianism, 56 UC Davis Law Review 1391 (2023).
Christine A. Parisek, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and Department of Wildlife, Fish, & Conservation Biology, https://caparisek.github.io/
Managing reservoirs more intentionally for fisheries. Fisheries research has predominantly concentrated on natural rivers, natural lakes, and oceans. Reservoirs are commonly disregarded as they are considered non-natural ecosystems, and thus their potential as a practical asset to global food systems or conservation is frequently overlooked. Yet while they are clearly novel ecosystems, reservoirs hold substantial freshwater fisheries biomass and may have higher ecological value than previously thought. Fisheries production potential in USA reservoirs was recently estimated at 4.46 billion kg/yr. The sheer magnitude of this estimate suggests reservoirs (and potentially other novel ecosystems) are being underutilized by human societies. Furthermore, these resources will quickly deteriorate without proper management. I suggest reservoir ecosystems and fisheries, in California and globally, would benefit from more intentional management.
Parisek, C.A., F.A. De Castro, J.D. Colby, G.R. Leidy, S. Sadro, A.L. Rypel. Reservoir ecosystems support large pools of fish biomass. bioRxiv preprint.
Rypel, A.L., C.A. Parisek, J. Lund, A. Willis, P.B. Moyle, Yarnell, S., and K. Börk. 2020. What’s the dam problem with deadbeat dams? https://californiawaterblog.com/2023/05/28/whats-the-dam-problem-with-deadbeat-dams/
Improving protection of aquatic ecosystems from wildfires. Freshwater ecosystems are facing a surge in climate-driven wildfire effects at all scales. Seven of the largest wildfires in California have occurred within the last four years, and megafires especially are causing unprecedented disturbance effects to ecosystems. We have poor understanding of how wildfire impacts freshwater ecosystems, and most regions – including California – lack comprehensive strategies for prioritizing protection of freshwater ecosystems and their inhabitants from wildfire. I suggest a statewide plan rapid response plan is needed to better protect water resources from significant wildfire events. Doing so will require a tiered strategic plan that addresses myriad components including, but not limited to, (1) risk assessment, (2) ecosystem impact analysis, (3) communication planning, and (4) creation of a statewide rapid response plan.
CWS News: NSF RAPID – Food webs of 10 lakes before and after mega-wildfire.
Fabian A. Bombardelli, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, https://faculty.engineering.ucdavis.edu/bombardelli/
Unified modeling tool for the Delta System. The number of issues the Delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers face increases at an exponential rate. Numerical modeling has been shown as a useful tool to address many of those issues, integrating hydrodynamics, water quality, ecosystem variables, etc. However, state and federal agencies and practitioners have endeavored to develop their own tools to assist in providing solutions to the problems. We propose a unified set of tools to attack the pressing issues in the Delta, which many agencies and practitioners could use, but coordinated by one, main group. The example of DWR DSM2 could serve as a guide, and be improved.
The set of tools could provide strong results in support of preparations for climate change, favoring resilience of the area to the major expected evolution paradigms in the near future.
Fleenor and Bombardelli (2013). Simplified 1-D Hydrodynamic and Salinity Transport Modeling of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta: Sea Level Rise and Water Diversion Effects, https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3km0d0kt
Jay Lund, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering https://faculty.engineering.ucdavis.edu/lund/
State water accounting system. As water becomes more scarce, the management of groundwater, surface water rights, environmental flows, negotiated agreements, and water markets will all be easier, more transparent, and have lower costs with a more standardized state accounting system. Today, several DWR and SWRCB programs and various GSAs have different water accounting systems. This makes regulation, coordination, and agreements more difficult, and reduces the transparency of water management in California. A common accounting system would also be a vehicle for better coordinating the technical and operational programs of state and local agencies in California.
Escriva-Bou, A., H. McCann, E. Hanak, J. Lund, B. Gray, E. Blanco, J. Jezdimirovic, B. Magnuson-Skeels, and A. Tweet. 2020. Water Accounting in the Western U.S., Australia and Spain: a Comparative Analysis. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 146 (3).
Joint-ventures for restoring basin ecosystems. The effectiveness of river basin ecosystem restoration plans and implementation suffer from fragmentation of authorities and funding. Two strong counterexamples are the Central Valley Joint Venture for waterfowl habitat development and maintenance and management of Putah Creek. Both of these efforts have been highly effective at developing and sustainably maintaining and adapting ecosystem habitats as joint efforts involving local, state, and federal governments together with a variety of NGO and private interests – allowing more effective use of complementary (rather than competing) authorities, missions, and resources.
https://www.centralvalleyjointventure.org/
Nicholas Pinter, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, https://eps.ucdavis.edu/people/faculty/pinter
Future California growth must side-step flood hazard. California has a mixed record of avoiding development in at-risk areas, and climate change is now magnifying flood risk and other hazards. Growth is needed in California, but the state urgently needs disciplinary-crossing research to steer future expansion. Anecdotally, several communities are now eyeing expansion into zones, already marginal, but certain to be at-risk under climate-changed conditions. We argue that an ounce of disaster prevention is worth a pound of post-disaster recovery, mitigation, and new engineering infrastructure cures. Disaster prevention means guiding urban development away from worsening and emerging climate change risks. New strategies must be developed to find pathways for growth while side-stepping flooding and other hazards, and doing so in ways that recognize the inequities in communities that are more vulnerable to conjugate climate risks and need expertise and guidance to effectively adapt.
The search for water solutions needs to be international. Water flows across national borders, unfettered by political distinctions, while water’s role in economic and ecological vitality is more important than ever. However, water management, research, and engineering still largely operate within local homegrown paradigms. Water managers and researchers are typically familiar with their own methods, sites, and toolkits. However, local focus has consequences, and opportunities are lost when we do not learn from successes and failures in other regions. Sharp and Leshner (2014) argue that “the search for solutions needs to draw upon the talents and innovative ideas of scientists, engineers, and societal leaders worldwide to overcome traditional and nationalistic paradigms that have so far been inadequate to meeting these challenges.”
https://worldwater.ucdavis.edu/
Andrew L. Rypel, UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and Department of Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology, https://sites.google.com/view/rypel-lab/home
Large aquatic ecosystem experiments. The status quo is not working for California’s aquatic ecosystems, which in turn, threatens the long-term viability of California’s water infrastructure and economy. Increasing numbers of aquatic species, including salmon, are sliding into oblivion, and fast. Some of the socioeconomic impacts of the recent declines on human communities (e.g., for Indigenous communities or California salmon fishers) are real, scary, and poorly reported on. Last month, a petition was filed to list California White Sturgeon under the US Endangered Species Act – the most recent reminder that our ecosystems are actually getting worse, not better. We have incrementally improved our abilities to manage and optimize water storage and use with time, but these same innovations just aren’t occurring for ecosystems.
We should be trying big aquatic ecosystem experiments at this point. For example, we might look at opportunities to release 1-3 million acre-feet of water for ecosystems. If combined with a science-based environmental flows approach, it might help. We should be thinking of ways to use all 500k acres of active rice fields as surrogate floodplain habitat for native species. How many deadbeat dams can we remove? Can we install permanent fish passage on dams we can’t remove? These are all big and expensive experiments, but they stand a chance at helping our ecosystems and communities.
Carpenter, S.R., S.W. Chisholm, C.J. Krebs, D.W. Schindler. 1995. Ecosystem experiments. Science 269: 324-327.
Rypel, A.L., P.B. Moyle, and J. Lund. 2021. A swiss cheese model for fish conservation in California. https://californiawaterblog.com/2021/01/24/a-swiss-cheese-model-for-fish-conservation-in-california/
Rypel, A.L., and P.B. Moyle. 2023. Hatcheries alone cannot save species and fisheries. https://californiawaterblog.com/2023/04/30/hatcheries-alone-cannot-save-species-and-fisheries/
A streamkeeper for every stream. There are many lessons to be gleaned from the Putah Creek experience, but the important role and potential for streamkeepers is one of the big ones. Watershed planning, while highly effective, is a challenging proposition – but a streamkeeper can aid in making this a reality. It is an appropriate title because it accurately summarizes the job – streamkeepers watch out for the ecosystem, its watershed, and its people. Streamkeepers are the ultimate transdisciplinary water professional; they know something about water management, watershed science, hydrology, fish, birds, wildlife, geology, human dimensions, biogeochemistry, science communication, agriculture, and the law. They know the scientists, and work with landowners and local conservation groups to connect all the dots. In short, the streamkeeper is positioned in the middle of everything, and therefore is effective at lobbying on behalf of the stream. Before my time in California, I worked closely with Black Warrior Riverkeeper (BWRK) in Alabama. Here, I saw time and again how effective a riverkeeper could be at looking after the integrity and ecology of a large watershed. BWRK was relentless in its defense of the watershed and effectively addressed environmental issues (particularly pollution issues) in near real time. In the case of Putah Creek, the presence and hard work of the streamkeepers has been vital to the ecological turnaround observed in the watershed (e.g., Jacinto et al. 2023).
Unfortunately few watersheds have streamkeepers, meaning most of our landscapes and communities are missing out on key benefits. I sometimes imagine what our waterways (or country for that matter) might look like if every stream had a streamkeeper. I think it would be a better place. So, if I could wave a magic wand and make something (realistic) happen that could have an outsized positive impact, it might be this.
Jacinto, E., N.A. Fangue, D.E. Cocherell, J.D. Kiernan, P.B. Moyle, and A.L. Rypel. 2023. Putah Creek’s rebirth: a model for other degraded streams? https://californiawaterblog.com/2023/07/08/putah-creeks-rebirth-a-model-for-reconciling-other-degraded-streams/
Parisek, C.A., P.B. Moyle, J. Porter, and A.L. Rypel. 2023. Schooling fish: Behind the scenes of Putah Creek fish sampling. https://californiawaterblog.com/2023/11/19/schooling-fish-behind-the-scenes-of-putah-creek-fish-sampling/
Peers, J. 2007. Learning through collaboration: an investigation of practice in streamkeepers groups. MS Thesis. The University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Rabidoux, A., M. Stevenson, P.B. Moyle, M.C. Miner, L.G. Hitt, D.E. Cocherell, N.A. Fangue, and A.L. Rypel. 2022. The Putah Creek fish kill: learning from a local disaster. https://californiawaterblog.com/2022/04/24/the-putah-creek-fish-kill-learning-from-a-local-disaster/
Rypel, A.L. 2022. Being patient and persistent with nature. https://californiawaterblog.com/2022/10/16/being-patient-and-persistent-with-nature/
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