Tag: California
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Delta Ecosystem Threatened by Another Nonnative Mollusk
By Andrew Cohen and Peter Moyle One of the world’s most invasive freshwater mussels has arrived in North America. The Golden Mussel (Limnoperna fortunei), discovered in the California Delta in October, is a voracious plankton feeder and may further reduce the food supply for Delta Smelt and other plankton-feeding fishes in low salinity environments. It…
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Pathways to research: An interview with Jon Walter
By Cathryn Lawrence This blog is the first in a series featuring interviews with scientists from the Center for Watershed Sciences to learn what sparked their passion to pursue a scientific research career. Kicking off the series we interview Jonathan Walter, a Senior Researcher and quantitative ecologist at CWS, who works on issues relating to the…
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Black Bass Diversity in California
By Peter B. Moyle and Andrew L. Rypel When both of us began studying the freshwater fishes of California, we independently discovered most fishes found in reservoirs and other highly altered habitats belonged to non-native species. Anglers and many fishery managers had pretty much accepted the reality that freshwater recreational fisheries are focused on non-native…
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Some curious things about water management
By Jay R. Lund *This is a repost of a blog originally published in 2012. Water management is often very different from what we think intuitively, or what we have been taught. Here are some examples. 1. Most water decisions are local. Water policy and management discussions often seem to assume that state and federal…
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Can Sacramento Valley reservoirs adapt to flooding with a warmer climate?
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” (Willis et al. 2022). This work also shows there is also an important component about…
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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…
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Board game wakens Delta islanders on flood risks
By Wouter Jan Klerk and Ties Rijcken The California Delta is one of the world’s most complex water systems. As a group of five Dutch students from Delft University of Technology, we were eager to visit the diked islands, or “polders,” as we call them in the Netherlands. We wanted to learn how California balances…
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Water and California’s Economy
Ellen Hanak, Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), San Francisco, CA Jay Lund, Center for Watershed Sciences, University of California – Davis Buzz Thompson, Stanford School of Law Today, PPIC released “Water and the California Economy,” a report that presents the consensus view of 15 experts* on the role of water in California’s economy, key…
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Some springtime reading on California water
Jay R. Lund, Director, Center for Watershed Sciences and the Ray B. Krone Chair of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis California is a wonderful place to study water, with so many interesting and important problems, many thoughtful and insightful authors, and much to be learned. Here is a short selection of readings on…
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When Good Fish Make Bad Decisions
Carson Jeffres, Staff Research Associate, Center for Watershed Sciences Restoration of degraded habitat is generally considered to be a no-brainer. But, what if by “restoring” the habitat, you inadvertently create a habitat that causes either the target species or other important non-target species to spiral towards extinction—that is, a place that looks good on the…
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Can solid flood planning improve all California water planning?
Jay R. Lund, The Ray B. Krone Chair of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis “No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.” E.L. Kersten The best time to prepare for floods is during a drought. In December, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) released their new Central Valley flood…
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Wanted: An integrated strategy for recovery of Central Valley salmon
Jacob Katz, Ph.D. Candidate, Center for Watershed Sciences Peter Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, University of California – Davis Historically, the rivers of the Central Valley had seasonally variable stream flows and diverse habitats. Rivers tended to flood in winter, with low flows in summer. Salmon used in-channel gravel beds for spawning, deep in-channel pools…
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Growing costs and concern for drinking water in Tulare Basin and Salinas Valley
Thomas Harter, Robert M. Hagan Endowed Chair in Water Management and Policy, University of California – Davis Jay R. Lund, The Ray B. Krone Chair of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis A potential public health concern has been percolating into aquifer drinking water supplies in the Tulare Basin and Salinas Valley for the…
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Have our salmon and eat them too: Re-thinking Central Valley salmon hatcheries
By Jacob Katz and Peter Moyle In the previous blog, Jay Lund argued that wide-scale, integrated management of California’s water system will better balance water needs of the environment and water demands by humans. Here we expand on the need for fundamental shifts in policy to recover populations of Central Valley salmon using integrated management…
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Expanding water storage capacity in California
Jay R. Lund, The Ray B. Krone Chair of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis “The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be.” The recent report from the US Bureau of Reclamation on the economic feasibility of raising Shasta Dam illustrates that we are in a new era for considering water…
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Insights for California water policy from computer modeling
“All models are wrong, but some are useful.” G.E.P. Box By Jay R. Lund California has a very complex water system which is important to many often competing interests and purposes. Because of this, California’s water system will always be controversial. Nevertheless, decisions about managing California’s water system will be made. How can we understand…
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A tribute to Alex Hildebrand
One of the best minds of the Delta and its most devoted advocate has left us. Alex Hildebrand passed away Monday at the venerable age of 98. Alex cared deeply for the land and the water of the South Delta, living his life and tending his farm in sync with the rise and fall of…
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Has human water use peaked in California?
Jay R. Lund, The Ray B. Krone Chair of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis Ellen Hanak, Senior Policy Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco For over a century, water planning and policy in California assumed perpetual increases in water demands for agricultural and urban uses. Of course, nothing can…
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Delta science in a post-Wanger world
Jeffrey F. Mount, Founding Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, University of California – Davis The Chief Scientist for the Delta has retired. No, not Cliff Dahm. He’s the Lead Scientist for the Delta Science Program (although he is returning to the University of New Mexico). Rather, it is Oliver Wanger, the mercurial judge…
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Sex, lies and videotape: Premature maturation of Chinook salmon on Shasta River
Carson Jeffres, Senior Research Associate, Center for Watershed Sciences, University of California – Davis Migration to and from the sea (anadromy) is the iconic pattern we associate with Pacific salmon. They spend most of their life in the ocean, taking advantage of its productivity to grow and mature. These adults return upstream to spawn in…