By Erik Porse, Maureen Kerner, Brian Currier, David Babchanik, Danielle Salt, and Julie Mansisidor Stormwater infrastructure in cities is highly visible and serves to mitigate flooding and reduce pollution that reaches local waterbodies. Being so visible, it might be reasonable to assume that stormwater is adequately funded both in infrastructure and water quality management. Yet,…

by Jeffrey Mount and Peter Moyle Several years ago on this site, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Center for Watershed Sciences—what we termed a “really good idea.”  That blog described the founding principles of the Center that live on today.  A few years after starting the Center, we had a second really good…

by Nan Frobish April 1, 2022 Juvenile Chinook Salmon lack rearing habitat in the Central Valley due to pervasive land use change and altered hydrology. Historically, juvenile salmon (or parr) had access to roughly four million acres of seasonal floodplain which provided ideal growth conditions before transitioning to the ocean. Managed wetlands and flooded off-season…

by Jay Lund 2022 is another drought year, although we won’t know exactly how dry for about another month.  Precipitation and snowpack this year in California are below average.  In addition, the prolonged dry and warm months of January through March of this year’s “wet” season will have evaporated more water from watersheds and reduced…

By Hana Moidu, Mariska Obedzinski, Stephanie Carlson, and Ted Grantham You may have heard the saying from the Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, “No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” If you walk along a coastal stream in California at the…

By Miranda Bell-Tilcock, Rachel Alsheikh, and Malte Willmes Doing science is hard. Even in the best of times, it’s incredibly difficult, with many failures, mishaps, and disappointments along the road. More so than just smarts, perseverance, resilience, and teamwork are essential to seeing a project from initial field and lab studies to final conclusions. If…

by Jay Lund “Structured decision-making” and “decision biases” are all the rage, but methods to structure and make better decisions have been common for centuries.  A recent paper reviews structured approaches to water planning and policy discussions (Lund 2021).  This blog post summarizes these approaches for practical water planning problems. Rational Planning “Rational” planning is…

by Jesse Gourevitch and Nicholas Pinter In response to growing threats of climate change, the US federal government is increasingly supporting community-level investments in resilience to natural hazards (Executive Order 14008, 2021; Lempert et al., 2018). As such federal programs become more widespread, evaluating their efficiency and effectiveness becomes essential. The Community Rating System (CRS),…

by Jay Lund After two years of solid drought, and four months into California’s “wet” season, we don’t know if this year will be wet or dry.  This is normal for California.  But this year’s monthly precipitation “whiplash” is unusual.   For northern California, October was the 2nd wettest October in 102 years of record…

by Miranda Bell Tilcock I published my first manuscript in January 2021, titled “Advancing diet reconstruction in fish eye lenses” in Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Publication and the subsequent press release led to quite the whirlwind of attention and interviews. The most notable was being featured on Science Friday. This was unexpected and the…

By Kristin Dobbin and Amanda Fencl A key feature of California’s drinking water system is the large number of individual water systems. There are approximately 3,000 Community Water Systems (CWSs) in the state, meaning systems that serve a residential population year-round (the remaining 5,000 of the state’s 8,000 Public Water Systems are non-community systems serve…

By Alyssa Obester, Rob Lusardi, Sarah Yarnell, Ryan Peek, and Nick Santos Fish need water. While minimum flows and other emergency-response approaches might save some fishes during crises, such “bucket-based” approaches are insufficient in the long-term. For example, biologists in the Owens Valley saved the Owens pupfish from extinction by translocating individuals via buckets; however,…

by Jay Lund California’s 2021 calendar year is over, but its 2022 Water Year (which started October 2021) is already three months old and still early in its wet season.  So far this wet season is actually wet. It is a good time to assess the condition of the present drought and whether it is…

by Christine A. Parisek and Andrew L. Rypel “The wait is over.  Your [California Waterblog 2021 Wrapped] is here.”  As we embark on another new year, we reflect and earnestly thank all of our readers, partners, authors, and friends. Studying water management challenges is complex and requires vision, transdisciplinary thinking, team science, and motivated people.…

by Kelly Neal Here is a story not quite like the one you have heard before, but echoes a similar tune as traditional lore. California salmon are at a precipice with conservation attempting to mitigate threats of climate change, habitat loss, and genetic simplification. Yet today, we have the knowledge and tools to create a…