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California WaterBlog

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  • Frolicking fat floodplain fish feeding furiously

    By Carson Jeffres Spring is here, temperatures are warming, and juvenile salmon have filled the floodplains—a link for them between the gravel bedded rivers where they hatched and the ocean where they will spend the next one to five years.  Although salmon may only use the floodplain for a month or two, this could mean…

  • The Delta, in 3-D

    Jay Lund, UC Davis Professor of Engineering   Time and tide wait for no man, and change in the Delta won’t wait for a computer model either. Continued land subsidence and sea level rise, increasing likelihood of a major earthquake, and rising chances of major floods all pose serious threats to subsided islands in the…

  • Water—Who uses how much?

    Whereas agriculture used to consume 80 percent of the state’s water supply, today 46 percent of  captured and stored water goes to environmental purposes, such as rebuilding wetlands. Meanwhile 43 percent goes to farming and 11 percent to municipal uses. — The Economist, October 2009 By Jeffrey Mount This excerpt is from an article that…

  • New Life for the Delta Ecosystem

    Peter Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, University of California-Davis  The Delta and Suisun Marsh were once part of a continuous, enormously productive aquatic ecosystem that supported dense populations of fish from Sacramento perch to salmon, huge flocks of wintering waterfowl, and concentrations of mammals from beaver to tule elk. This amazing ecosystem is gone and…

  • What if the worst drought hit California today?

    “And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.” —  John Steinbeck Jay R. Lund, Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis California has been…

  • Stressed Out—Dealing with the Delta’s non-native landscape

    Jay R. Lund, Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis Peter Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, University of California – Davis Jeffrey Mount, Professor of Geology, University of California – Davis Ellen Hanak, Public Policy Institute of California William Fleenor, Research Engineer, University of California – Davis   The Delta’s…

  • Blogs, blogs everywhere…

    This week’s blog is a compilation of recent stories you might have missed. BDCP parties agree to a peripheral bucket line around Delta – The 44 mile line would require 33,000 employees per shift, spaced 7 feet apart, and would have a capacity of 5 gallons per second.  A DWR spokesman said, “This approach will…

  • Dammed fish? Call 5937.

    Peter Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, UC Davis Brian Gray, Professor of Law, UC Hastings School of Law “The owner of any dam shall allow sufficient water at all times to pass over, around, or through the dam, to keep in good condition any fish that may be planted or exist below the dam.” California…

  • Taking agricultural conservation seriously

    Jay Lund1, Ellen Hanak2, Richard Howitt3, Ariel Dinar4, Brian Gray5, Jeffrey Mount6, Peter Moyle7, Barton “Buzz” Thompson8     For decades, people have observed that human water use in California is largely devoted to irrigating farmland, and they have therefore assumed that farms are the obvious places to save water.  Our recent book, Managing California’s…

  • Sea level rise and Delta subsidence—the demise of subsided Delta islands

    Jay R. Lund, the Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis Periodically, scientists point to the weaknesses of levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.  The press and policy makers respond with astonishment, followed by local assertions of levee sustainability and pleas for greater subsidies.  This cycle has recurred several times…

  • Water to the sea isn’t wasted

    By Jeffrey Mount In December of 2010 we had a remarkable set of storms.  Relentless rain and snowfall hit both southern and northern California.  The news reports about these events followed a predictable pattern, including the inevitable articles that bemoan floodwaters as “wasted” because they discharge to the sea. This generalization about floodwaters or any…

  • What’s next for California water?

    Jay Lund, UC Davis, Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering California faces yet another period of transition in water management, with attendant turmoil and uncertainties. Since statehood, California’s landscape, society, economy, government, and environment have undergone a series of great changes. So going through another shift, while dramatic, is not especially shocking. Water management…

  • Delta “chicken” – A tragedy

    Jay Lund, UC Davis, Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering   Few dispute the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s poor and deteriorating condition—for native fishes, many landowners, and water users locally and statewide—and the subsequent need for major changes in Delta policy.  Most parties understand that without a credible comprehensive solution, continued deterioration will become more…

  • Reconciliation or extinction—the future of California?

    By Peter Moyle It is easy to be pessimistic about the future of familiar life on this planet, especially here in California. We face an ever-growing human population, the rise of consumerism, and the refusal of most Americans to recognize that their life style is a major contributor to the problem. Climate change also threatens…

  • Striped bass control: cure worse than disease?

    By Peter B. Moyle and William A. Bennett Seven species of fish in the Delta are listed as threatened or endangered, including Delta smelt, salmon and steelhead. Although the ultimate cause of decline in these species is adverse water management throughout the Central Valley, there is a constant search for ways to increase their numbers…

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