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California WaterBlog

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  • Whiplash Again! – Learning from Wet (and Dry) Years

    by Jay Lund, Deirdre Des Jardins, Kathy Schaefer “Old superlatives have been dusted off and new ones count to better describe the tragedy, damage, and trauma associated with the State’s latest ‘unusual’ weather experience.” DWR Bulletin 69-83, California High Water 1982-83, p.1 “California’s climate has often been described as variable, inconsistent, and unpredictable. The meteorological…

  • Monster Fish: Lessons for Sturgeon Management in California

    By Peter B. Moyle & Andrew L. Rypel If you ever watched National Geographic television and are interested fishes and rivers, you likely have some familiarity with Dr. Zeb Hogan. He hosted a series of shows on giant freshwater fishes, called Monster Fish. He and a colleague also recently published a fascinating book (Hogan and…

  • Tulare Basin and Lake – 2023 and their future

    by Jay Lund “The fact that our rivers have been relatively quiet during the last 40 years probably doesn’t mean anything; it’s just a statistical coincidence …. The problem is more psychological. We have become complacent. When we don’t experience a big flood for a while, we tend to forget just how big our floods…

  • Hatcheries alone cannot save species and fisheries

    By Andrew L. Rypel and Peter B. Moyle The photo is a common one (Fig 1). Large numbers of fish are being released into a river, stream or estuary – products of a fish hatchery. A politician or government leader looks on, or even participates in the release, says a few words, and then grabs…

  • The Banality of Floods (and Droughts)

    By Jay Lund California’s ongoing floods and very wet year overall will continue to grab headlines, provide great pictures, and break some local records, but overall this year is unlikely to be truly extreme from historical or broader water policy and management perspectives. It can still be a very useful wet year, beyond just having…

  • Lake Tulare (and its fishes) shall rise again

    By Peter B. Moyle “Agriculture has claimed and taken away our former fishing conditions and we have but little water left for fish life within reach of the common people.” ~S.L.N. Ellis, 1922. “When nature provides more water than storage facilities can handle, the lake will rise like a soggy Phoenix from the supine countryside…

  • Perspectives on DairyMAR

    By Thomas Harter and Helen Dahlke Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) to not only store water but also to prevent unwanted flooding. In the recent executive order (N-4-23), governor Newsom provided a near-blanket permit for water managers to divert surface water from flooded streams toward groundwater recharge, an operation referred to as “managed aquifer recharge” (MAR…

  • New methods emerging for water management in California

    by Elsa Cailleach Some of you might have noticed it’s been rainy outside lately – alot! Amazingly, the long-desired string of atmospheric rivers is now plaguing the previously drought-ridden state with more water than anyone knows what to do with! This blog reports on some interesting new methods of water capture and management emerging in…

  • This Drought is Dead – Long Live the Drought

    by Jay Lund and Andrew L. Rypel Floods and droughts are not opposites and can occur simultaneously. This occurs often in California and is especially well-illustrated this year. Floods, droughts, and water scarcity are different. Floods are too much water at a place and time, and we would often pay to reduce the water present…

  • The rapid invasion of Mississippi silverside in California

    by Peter B. Moyle The Mississippi silverside (Menidia audens[1]) is one of the most abundant fishes in the San Francisco Estuary and in the fresh waters of California in general. As the name indicates, it is not native to the state but was introduced into Clear Lake, Lake County, in 1967, from which it quickly…

  • Explaining water units to real people (who like basketball)

    by Jay Lund It’s March madness once again as we try to explain water conditions in California to real people in the midst of additional basketball madness. We all enjoy and suffer with basketball.  This commonality can make it a useful unit of volume among the many units of volume used for water. A basketball…

  • Hiding in plain sight: newly described freshwater fishes from the Los Angeles area and elsewhere in California

    By Peter B. Moyle, Nicholas Buckmaster, and Yingxin Su Lulu Miller in her wonderful 2020 book, Why Fish Don’t Exist, describes how fish exist to us humans only if they have been assigned proper names. The Santa Ana Speckled Dace is a local case in point. This small fish has been living in southern California…

  • Will more wildfire and precipitation extremes mussel-out California’s freshwater streams?

    By Andrew J. Lawrence and Andrew L. Rypel Apocalyptic scenes of wildfires and floods are now familiar to Californians. However, the ecological impacts from these events remain understudied in California and across the world. Gaps in awareness and understanding on the issue are especially intense for freshwater mussels, whose cryptic and sedentary life-histories belie their…

  • A Guide for New California Water Wonks

    by Jay Lund Water is a universal foundation for every problem and opportunity in California.  Most people use it every day, yet even experts with decades of experience don’t know it all.   (Alas, too many advocates and pundits almost don’t know it at all.)  Welcome! Immense numbers of books and articles have been written on…

  • Green Sturgeon in California: Hidden Lives Revealed From Long-Term Tracking

    By Scott F. Colborne, Lawrence W. Sheppard, Daniel R. O’Donnell, Daniel C. Reuman, Jonathan A. Walter, Gabriel P. Singer, John T. Kelly, Michael J. Thomas, and Andrew L. Rypel You gotta respect fishes that have been around since the dinosaurs, such as the 27 described sturgeon species. Unfortunately, the majority of these fishes currently face…

  • Resistance is Futile – Agriculture is Key to Fixing Lower Colorado River Water Shortages

    by Jay Lund and Josué Medellin-Azuara The lower Colorado River has been out of balance for about 40 years, using more water than has been available.  As their reservoirs empty, the three lower basin states, federal government, and water users are getting around to addressing this problem.   The Colorado River reservoir system has immense storage…

  • DNA Unveils New Freshwater Fish Species in California

    By Peter B. Moyle & Matthew A. Campbell No doubt you have watched a crime show where DNA analysis reveals the identity of a victim or criminal. Or, you have read accounts of how Neanderthal genes are part of our DNA. It is still astonishing to think that such uses of DNA did not exist…

  • Is the Drought Over? Reflections on California’s Recent Flood-Drought Combo

    By Andrew L. Rypel, Jay Lund, and Carson Jeffres Early January was an unusually wild ride of atmospheric rivers. Nine sizable systems produced a train of storms beginning about New Years and lasting for several weeks across almost all of California. After three years of drought, the storms reminded us that California has flood problems…

  • Nature’s gift to nature in early winter storms

    By Jeffrey Mount, Peter B. Moyle, Andrew L. Rypel, and Carson Jeffres The current wet spell, made up of a parade of atmospheric rivers, is a welcome change from the last three years of record dry and warm conditions. For very good reasons, the focus during these big, early winter storms is first and foremost…

  • Drought and the Colorado River: Localizing Water in Los Angeles

    By Erik Porse and Stephanie Pincetl In October 2022, water agencies in Southern California with Colorado River water rights announced plans to reduce water diversions. The agencies offered voluntary conservation of 400,000 acre-feet per year through 2026. This annual total is nearly 10% of the state’s total annual usage rights for the Colorado River. The…

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