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California WaterBlog

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  • Getting Strategic about Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation in California

    by Jeanette Howard, Kurt Fesenmyer, Theodore Grantham, Joshua Viers, Peter Ode, Peter Moyle, Sarah Kupferberg, Joseph Furnish, Andrew Rehn, Joseph Slusark, Raphael Mazor, Nicholas Santos, Ryan Peek, and Amber Wright An essential first step to protect biodiversity is understanding what species are present in a region, where they can be found, and their conservation status. For…

  • U.C. Davis Law’s Environmental Law Center Releases Proposition 3 White Paper

    by Richard Frank This article originally appeared on Legal Planet on October 31, 2018 The U.C. Davis School of Law’s California Environmental Law & Policy Center has published a detailed analysis of one of the most controversial initiative measures facing California voters on the November 6, 2018 general election ballot: Proposition 3.  California’s Proposition 3: A…

  • Opportunities for Science Collaboration and Funding in the Delta

    by Aston Tennefoss The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) is central to California’s water supply system, and serves a diverse group of stakeholders, including local, state, and federal agencies, elected officials, and water users. Its islands, channels, and wetlands also are home to an expansive but highly disrupted ecosystem, which is studied extensively. Many studies are…

  • The Public Trust and SGMA

    by Brian Gray In a recent decision in litigation over flows and salmon survival in the Scott River system, the California Court of Appeal has ruled that groundwater pumping that diminishes the volume or flow of water in a navigable surface stream may violate the public trust. The public trust does not protect groundwater itself.…

  • Water storage successes, failures, and challenges from Proposition 1

    by Jay Lund The California Water Commission recently allocated $2.7 billion from Proposition 1 bonds for eight water storage projects.  Proposition 1 was passed in 2014 to fund a range of projects, including “public purposes” of water storage projects, such as for ecosystem support, flood risk reduction, water quality, recreation, and emergency response.  Among its…

  • Water Grabs of California, Explained Simply

    by Jay Lund Your water use is a “grab” and a “waste.”  My water use is a nab, and a sacred right.  We all see water the same way, mostly, but from different perspectives. Historically, periods of progress in water management occur when enough people rise above such motivational rhetoric and struggle for workable solutions.…

  • Science, the Delta, and the future of San Joaquin salmon

    by Peter B. Moyle I feel fortunate to be a biologist in an era and place, California, where science matters.  Routine scientific studies rarely make headlines but they are relied on by decision makers because they reduce uncertainty, bit by bit.   This seems to be true nationwide as well, except in the highest levels of…

  • Fish managers tasked with ranching? Conservation wins

    by Ann Willis In May, the Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) approved $2.4M for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to acquire Shasta Big Springs Ranch on the Shasta River, a tributary to the Klamath River.  This follows a 2010 state award of $10M to purchase the existing easement and control over water rights…

  • Killing Native Fishes for Fun and Predator Control

    by Teejay A. O’Rear, John R. Durand, and Peter B. Moyle A recent posting of a short film on a 2017 fishing derby (FISHBIO 2018a) is disturbing to those of us interested in conserving our native fishes.  The film glorifies killing Sacramento pikeminnow and hardhead for reducing predation on juvenile Chinook salmon and for attracting…

  • Groundwater exchange pools in Los Angeles: An innovative example of adaptive management

    by Erik Porse, Kathryn Mika, Stephanie Pincetl, Mark Gold, and William Blomquist Across California, Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) are devising plans to reduce long-term overdraft. As part of the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, GSAs will submit plans in 2020-2022, which detail strategies to bring groundwater use into balance by 2040. Planning processes must assemble…

  • Indirect Environmental Benefits of Cannabis Cultivation Regulation

    by Kathleen Stone The external pressures for cannabis cultivation and the immediate need for water use regulation may provide opportunities for broader, long-sought environmental objectives in California. Specifically, legislation and state programs regulating water use for cannabis cultivation could produce collateral benefits for environmental instream flow and water quality management in general. The Medical Cannabis…

  • SGMA struggles to overcome marginalization of disadvantaged communities

    by Kristin Dobbin Small Disadvantaged Communities (DACs), or DACs with less than 10,000 people, have long been disproportionately affected by California’s water management woes such as groundwater overdraft and pollution. Now, new research from the UC Davis Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior shows that the majority of small DACs are not participating in the…

  • Guest Species – What about the nonnative species we like?

    by Karrigan Bork, JD, PhD Conservationists worry about a host of nonnative species, and with good reason. Nonnative species cause north of $120 billion per year in damages in North America alone, and they present the primary extinction risk for roughly half of the threatened or endangered species in the United States. The worst offenders are…

  • Managing Domestic Well Impacts from Overdraft and Balancing Stakeholder Interests

    by Robert M. Gailey and Jay R. Lund The historic drought in California from 2012 through 2016 brought unprecedented groundwater level declines and reports of dry domestic supply wells.  This was particularly true in the Central Valley. New research on conditions in Tulare County during the drought provides insight regarding tradeoffs in interests between domestic…

  • Habitat Restoration for Chinook Salmon in Putah Creek: A Success Story

    by Eric Chapman, Emily Jacinto, and Peter Moyle 2017 was another good year for Chinook salmon in Putah Creek. Putah Creek is just a small stream flowing through Yolo and Solano counties, fed by releases of water from Lake Berryessa. For decades, Chinook salmon were rare in the creek. Yet, now, with salmon populations struggling…

  • Improving Urban Water Conservation in California

    by Erik Porse The relatively dry 2017-18 winter in California resurfaced recent memories of drought conservation mandates. From 2013-16, urban water utilities complied with voluntary, then mandatory, water use limits as part of Executive Order B-37-16. Urban water utilities met a statewide 25% conservation target (24.9%), helping the state weather severe drought. Winter rains in…

  • Resurrecting the Delta for Desirable Fishes

    by Peter Moyle, Carson Jeffres, John Durand The Delta is described in many ways.  When extolling the Delta as a tourist destination, it is described as a place of bucolic beauty; islands of productive farmland are threaded by meandering channels of sparkling water, a place to boat, fish, view wildlife, and grow cherries and pears. But…

  • Modeling, Measuring, and Comparing Crop Evapotranspiration in the Delta

    by Jesse Jankowski Crop evapotranspiration (ET) is the biggest managed loss of water in California, accounting for roughly 80% of human net water use, and includes crop water applications transpired from plants and evaporated from soil. Methods to estimate ET have been developed based on a robust scientific understanding of its physics and data collected…

  • Reality Check of California Water Fix Model results in a Critical Flow Year

    by William Fleenor In 2008 a group from the Center for Watershed Sciences (including this author), joined by an economist from the Public Policy Institute, published findings that suggested that an alternative conveyance for Sacramento River water might improve ecological conditions in the Delta and improve reliability for Delta water exports [1, 2]. The original…

  • Groundwater Recovery in California – Still Behind the Curve

    by Thomas Harter and Bill Brewster California has a unique and highly variable climate in which drought reoccurs periodically. California began this century in a dry period from 1999 to 2005, and experienced droughts from 2007 to 2009, and 2012 to 2016.  Such wet-dry cycles can be seen in Figure 1, which shows total rainfall…

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