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California WaterBlog

Previous Posts

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  • Accounting for Water in the San Joaquin Valley

    by Brad Arnold1, Alvar Escriva-Bou1,2, Jay Lund1, and Ellen Hanak2 University of California – Davis, Center for Watershed Sciences Public Policy Institute of California Accounting for water supplies and uses is fundamental to good water management, but it is often difficult and controversial to implement. As with other types of accounting, this task is harder…

  • California’s drought and floods are over and just beginning

    By Jay Lund  California is a land of extremes – where preparing for extremes must be constant and eternal. The last six years demonstrated California’s precipitation extremes. From 2012-2015, California endured one of its driest years of record.  2016 was an additional near-average year, classified into drought because water storage levels were so low. 2017…

  • Down the DRAIN: California gets a jump on Delta tunnels

    by Nan W. and Dunlay J. Frobish California took a step towards replumbing its archaic Delta water infrastructure by completing the first part of a contentious project. An intake for the first Delta tunnel was completed this fall, and with the return of wet weather, began transporting flows that will eventually bypass the Delta entirely.…

  • Pumping out the Inland Sea – Delta exports in a time of plenty

      By Jay Lund This is northern California’s wettest year of record, so far.  The Yolo Bypass has been flooded for most of this wet season, and is still flowing.  Are Delta water exports going to exceed the previous record exports from 2011 (6.5 maf)?  The figure above compares this year’s Delta water exports compare…

  • Post-drought groundwater in California: Like the economy after a deep “recession,” recovery will be slow

    by Thomas Harter The 2012-2016 drought has made many of us keenly aware of how “empty” our groundwater “reservoirs” have become. As the recent series of atmospheric rivers have left us with a massive snowpack, full surface water reservoirs (with some exceptions in southern California), and soggy soils, some questions are frequently asked: Is the…

  • Evading Dam-Nation to Build a Working Floodplain on the Cosumnes River

    by Michelaina Johnson This winter’s barrage of rain storms has driven most Central Valley rivers to the point of near record-breaking flooding, and the Cosumnes River is no exception. On February 10th, the Cosumnes hit the second highest peak flow in its recorded flow history: 45,400 cubic feet per second at Michigan Bar. The Cosumnes…

  • What do stream fish do during flood flows?

    By Peter B. Moyle My local stream, Putah Creek, looks like a river these days.  Water is pouring down the Glory Hole of Lake Berryessa and rushing in muddy turmoil from the ‘dry’ creeks that are its main tributaries.   The creek’s deeply incised and leveed channel is containing the flows that once would have spread…

  • California’s Floods of 2017, so far

    by Jay Lund What a wild water month!  Floods, spillway damage, and levee failures!  Mass evacuations! And Donald Trump and Barack Obama are not even remotely to blame! Flood control and preparation are vitally important for California.  Now we remember. This year we see California’s raw, boisterous, and often irresistible flood potential.  And we see…

  • Yolo Bypass: the inland sea of Sacramento

    By Megan Nguyen Land or Sea? The recent rains early this year brought much needed relief from the five-year drought in California. Reservoirs are full, mountains are covered with snow, and flood control structures are being used, some for the first time since 2006. Interstate 80 causeway commuters frequently, though perhaps unknowingly, witness one of…

  • Reconciling conservation and human use in the Delta

    By John Durand, Peter Moyle, and Amber Manfree  In a previous blog, we presented a Grand Scheme for habitat conservation in the North Delta Arc (the Arc). This follows up on our earlier broad vision for recreating a Delta more friendly to its native species.  In this essay, we give philosophical and historical reasons to approach…

  • California’s Wettest Drought? – 2017

    By Jay Lund Wet.  After five years of drought, most of California finally has become wet.  The mountains are exceptionally wet and covered with snow.  The state’s reservoirs are fuller than their long term average (with a few exceptions).  Flood control structures are being employed, some for the first time since 2006. We can now…

  • Episode 3: “Unraveling the Knot” Water Movement in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – Managing Flows

    By William Fleenor, Amber Manfree, and Megan Nguyen Delta water diversions have significant effects on flows and water quality within the Delta. Diversions can re-direct river flows and draw salt water inland from the sea, impacting water quality and the environment. Episode 3 explores how water diversion quantity affects in-Delta flow directions and quantities. This…

  • Episode 1: “Unraveling the Knot” Water movement in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

    By Bill Fleenor, Amber Manfree, and Megan Nguyen In 2010, John DeGeorge of RMA, Inc used animated model results to illustrate specific flow and water quality issues in the Delta to the State Water Board. The Center for Watershed Sciences, working with John and using RMA software, has assembled a series of narrated animations to…

  • Indicators of a drought ending in northern California

    Jay Lund Droughts are common in California, a large, generally dry, and hydrologically complex place.  So it is hard to rely on a single index of the end or beginning of a drought.  A single storm is rarely enough to end a drought in California, especially a long drought like the one that seems to…

  • Tails of California’s Drought

    by Jay Lund Storms are filling reservoirs, building snowpack, and flooding in ways not seen since the most recent California drought began in 2012.  The state’s reservoirs today contain 1.2 million acre-ft more water than the long-term average for this time of year (the first time above average in 6 years).  Two years ago reservoir…

  • Out With the Old Drought and In With the New?

    By Jay Lund We are just a few months into this year’s wet season, and progress has been great.  Statewide, California is about 800,000 acre ft below average surface water storage for this time of year.  California’s water year began with surface storage about 3 million acre ft (3 full Folsom Reservoirs) less than historical…

  • Shadow theater and data management for the Delta – a video

    By Amber Manfree Data and data management are persistent concerns for the Delta and California water more generally. Data Wars: A New Hope, a shadow puppet play on the subject, was shown at the 2016 Bay-Delta Science Conference in Sacramento. The challenge of the Conference’s theme, “Science for Solutions: Linking Data and Decisions,” is illustrated…

  • California, Flood Risk, and the National Flood Insurance Program

    by Nicholas Pinter, Rui Hui, and Kathy Schaefer Across the US and worldwide, flooding is the deadliest and most costly natural disaster.  The US National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is an imperfect framework for reducing flood losses, but currently the best we’ve got.  NFIP is scheduled for Congressional reauthorization in 2017, and this debate promises…

  • How engineers see the water glass in California

    How do engineers see the water glass in California? Mostly the same as they did four years ago when this blog was first posted, though with today’s drought the glass is perhaps down to a quarter full — or three-quarters empty.  By Jay R. Lund Depending on your outlook, the proverbial glass of water is either…

  • The Coming Droughts of California in 2017 – November 27, 2016

    By Jay Lund California is a big diverse place. California probably will experience droughts this year of different types in different places, and no drought at all in some places, simultaneously.  Even if conditions this year are very wet, with flooding, parts of California will have drought issues. (This is what makes California a great…

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