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California WaterBlog

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  • Water managers drop the ball on Hetch Hetchy

    By Nan W. Frobish Visitors to Yosemite’s iconic Hetch Hetchy reservoir are doing a double-take. Instead of seeing the majestic backdrop of the Sierra Nevada reflected in the pristine mountain water, they are now greeted by millions of black balls that cover the surface. After four years of record-setting drought and statewide low reservoir levels,…

  • “Toilet to tap”: A potential high quality water source for California

    By Nathaniel Homan Reusing water is not a new concept to many Californians. Many municipalities across California have facilities that treat wastewater to high standards, which allows it to be reused for agricultural irrigation, landscape irrigation, and industrial use. Other municipalities, such as the Orange County Water District, treat wastewater even further using advanced technologies,…

  • Floods, farms, fowl, and fish: a confluence of successful management

    By Eric Holmes The floodplain smorgasbord is open! Wrapping up a successful fifth season, the Knaggs Nigiri  project, partnered with California Trout and the California Department of Water Resources, places fall run juvenile Chinook salmon in inundated rice fields during a six week period in February and early March, the non-rice-growing season.  The project has implications…

  • Using Game Theory To Encourage Cooperation in Levee System Planning

    By Rui Hui, Jay Lund and Kaveh Madani Levees protect land from floods, but not perfectly. Different levees on a river often are controlled by different agencies or groups. A landowner on one riverbank sees the levee system differently from a landowner on the opposite bank or downstream. Each landowner, or elected levee board, is…

  • Let people pay what water is worth – Sell your conserved water

      By Jay Lund During dry years, water becomes scarcer, and, economically, people should pay more for it. But most urban residents do not pay directly for water scarcity. We only pay the financial cost of providing water through pipes, pumping, treatment plants, and reservoirs. We do not pay for the lost value that water…

  • ENSO the Drought Strikes Back! The 2016 Drought so far – March 1

    By Jay Lund Summary of conditions February 2016 has been dry, despite El Nino-besotted promises of aqueous abundance. There is sometimes a difference between climatic conditions and hydrologic reality (and economic reality). Annual precipitation and snowpack are now about average or a little less. Fortunately, the largest reservoirs continue to fill slowly, relative to previous…

  • You Can’t Always Get What You Want – A Mick Jagger Theory of Drought Management

    by Jay Lund “You can’t always get what you want But if you try sometimes you just might find You get what you need,” Rolling Stones (1969, Let It Bleed album) The ongoing California drought has many lessons for water managers and policy-makers. Perhaps the greatest lesson is how unimportant a drought can be if…

  • What lies behind the dam? In some cases, self-sustaining salmon

    By K. Martin Perales Chinook salmon are a remarkably adaptable species. There is good reason to believe there are multiple populations of landlocked Chinook salmon completing their entire life cycle above Central Valley dams. We recently documented spawning above six of thirteen reservoirs that have been stocked with Chinook. In some cases, populations have persisted for…

  • Wanted: student scientists looking for inspiration and adventure

    By Sarah Yarnell and Ann Willis Every spring for the past 12 years, a class of a dozen or so UC Davis undergraduates ride a river in the American West for a learning adventure like none other in their college life. Whether rafting the Colorado through the Grand Canyon, plying the undammed Skeena in British…

  • ENSO it’s raining. The 2016 Drought so far – February 1

    by Jay Lund Summary of conditions January 2016 has been much wetter than the previous Januaries during this drought. Precipitation is modestly above average, as is snowpack, and climatic conditions remain promising. The largest reservoirs are mostly fuller than a year ago, although not nearly to average conditions for this time of year. Groundwater is…

  • Why care about native freshwater fish?

    By Jason Baumsteiger Even with a strong El Niño year, there are no assurances the drought is over. Clearly we need a better plan for future droughts and that plan needs to include provisions for native freshwater fish.  But why include native fish? There are many reasons.  Many feel that native fish have a right…

  • Eager for rain – and floods – on California’s floodplain playground: the lower Cosumnes River

    By Andrew Nichols California’s drought plays on, and a recent series of storms to start the New Year have done little to change this broken record.  However, promising weather conditions suggest a change of tune may be coming soon.  This is exciting news for drought-stricken California, bringing hope of full reservoirs and an extended spring…

  • Science takes flight: aerial imagery provides new opportunities and insights

    By Devon Lambert Remote sensing is all the rage as we start the New Year, largely due to its ability to exponentially increase our areas of analysis for research. What used to take us weeks to survey with traditional field methods can be done in as little as a few hours, sometimes without even leaving…

  • ENSO it Begins? The 2016 Drought – so far – January 3

    By Jay Lund “One afternoon they take me … to witness a great religious ceremony. It is the invocation to the gods for rain.” John Wesley Powell (1895, p. 338) 2016 starts with slightly above average precipitation and snowpack and promising climatic conditions, but a long way to go… Summary of conditions California remains in…

  • The Earth is Falling! – Land Subsidence and Water Management in California

    By Jay Lund, Thomas Harter, Rob Gailey, Rick Frank, and Graham Fogg Groundwater problems are mostly invisible.  However, as California has come to rely more on groundwater during the drought, land subsidence from groundwater drawdown and accumulating overdraft has become a visible concern in some areas. Some of this subsidence has been dramatic. Almost 4…

  • Comments to SWRCB: Regulation for Measuring and Reporting Water Diversion

    By Henry McCann, Elisa Blanco, Alvar Escriva-Bou, Ellen Hanak, Jay Lund, Bonnie Magnuson-Skeels, Andrew Tweet[1] Governor Brown signed Senate Bill 88 on June 24, 2015, adding provisions to the California Water Code for stricter measurement and reporting for surface water diverters. Last week, the State Water Resources Control Board published a draft Emergency Regulation for…

  • Improving mandatory State cutbacks of urban water use for a 5th year of drought

    By Jay R. Lund There is usually great uncertainty about when a drought will end, but certainty that longer droughts bring tougher economic and ecosystem conditions as water in aquifers and reservoirs is further depleted.  Long droughts, like the current one, also bring opportunities to use water more efficiently, based on lessons from the drought so…

  • California’s groundwater – basics, laws, and beyond

    By Chris Austin Groundwater has been receiving a lot of attention lately, and for good reason. California is the heaviest groundwater user in the nation, and our use is increasing after recent, multiple dry years. The Sustainable Groundwater Supply Act of 2014 set a fundamentally new state water policy to manage and monitor the state’s…

  • Rising to El Niño’s challenges – and opportunities

    By Nicholas Pinter The much-anticipated El Niño has now arrived, with increased potential for heavy rain and snowfall, including the possibility of localized flooding, mudslides and other hazards. While extreme storms, flooding and other natural disasters challenge society to protect life and property from damage, they also present opportunities. Floods in particular often catalyze positive…

  • Keep California’s water ‘Maven’ afloat

    The nonprofit Maven’s Notebook has become the daily go-to place for the latest California water news and information, including meeting summaries, keynote speeches and digests of ponderous documents. It’s a one-person operation, and that person, Chris Austin (aka “Maven”), needs your donations to stay afloat. Helping Maven’s Notebook stay nonprofit helps everyone in California water policy and…

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