Category Archives: California Water

Can Sacramento Valley reservoirs adapt to flooding with a warmer climate?

Posted on June 25, 2023 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

  by Jay Lund and Ann Willis Editor’s note: This is a blog that was originally posted on 6/25/17. Since publication of the blog, there has been interesting newer research about running the San Joaquin rim dams for “functional flows” … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water, Climate Change, Floodplains | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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

Posted on August 28, 2022 by jaylund

by Jay Lund [This is a reposting of a CaliforniaWaterBlog.com post from February 2016, near the end of the previous drought.  For human uses, conditions seem somewhat similar to this point in the previous drought, so this perspective might be … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, California Water, Drought, Economy, Uncategorized | Tagged | 2 Comments

The Dreamt Land by Mark Arax: We’re all complicit in California’s water follies

Posted on October 21, 2019 by Ann Willis

by Ann Willis We are all sinners. At least, that’s the impression Mark Arax leaves in The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California. What’s bold, and distinguishes this book from others about California, is that Arax grapples with … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, California Water, Drought, education, Stressors, Sustainability | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Collapse of Water Exports – Los Angeles, 1914

Posted on March 17, 2019 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Jay Lund “In February, 1914, the rainfall in the Mojave Desert region exceeded by nearly fifty per cent in three days the average annual precipitation. Where the steel siphon crosses Antelope valley at the point of greatest depression, an … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water | Tagged | 5 Comments

The folly of unimpaired flows for water quality management

Posted on November 25, 2018 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Ann Willis Unimpaired streamflow has long been the benchmark against which current stream flows are evaluated for environmental purposes. The underlying assumption is that if there is water in a stream, the stream must be healthy. A closer look … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Eastern San Joaquin Valley and other CA drinking water supplies at risk in the next drought

Posted on November 12, 2018 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

by Amanda Fencl, Rich Pauloo, Alvar Escriva-Bou, Hervé Guillon During the 2012-2016 drought, the state received more than 2,500 domestic well failure reports, the majority of which were in the Central Valley (DWR 2018). This left thousands of people without a … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water, Drinking water, Drought | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Getting Strategic about Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation in California

Posted on November 4, 2018 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Biology, California Water, Conservation, reconciliation | Tagged | 1 Comment

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

Posted on November 2, 2018 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Public Trust and SGMA

Posted on October 7, 2018 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in California Water, Groundwater | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Water storage successes, failures, and challenges from Proposition 1

Posted on September 9, 2018 by UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

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 … Continue reading →

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