Tag: Delta
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Microplastic Pollution: Impact on the SF Bay Delta and Remediation Strategies
“Microplastic Pollution: Impact on the SF Bay Delta and Remediation Strategies” Symposium with Delta Stewardship Council and Coastal Marine Sciences Institute By Miranda Bell-Tilcock In May, I had the privilege of attending the Microplastic Pollution: Impact on the SF Bay Delta and Remediation Strategies symposium hosted by the Coastal Marine Sciences Institute (CMSI) and the…
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The Big Impact of Small Waters: Zooplankton Density Trends in the North Delta
By Kim Luke & John Durand Zooplankton and their history in the San Francisco Estuary Zooplankton are tiny aquatic organisms unable to swim against currents; they include microscopic crustaceans, small jellyfish, and larval life stages of other organisms (Figure 1). Although zooplankton are small in size, they have a big impact on the food web…
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Science seen from different perspectives
by Jay Lund The awe-inspiring Phil Isenberg used to talk about differences in culture between science and policy as being akin to the two cultures of scholarship discussed by C.P. Snow – science and humanities. It is hard for one mind to deeply appreciate the variety and importance of many ways of thinking, and more…
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Marsh on the move: bringing environmental education into the classroom
By Josie Storm, Christine Parisek, Brian Williamshen, Caroline Newell, Sarah Yarnell, Kim Luke, Jake Shab, and Erin Tracy This spring, a group of researchers and students at the Center for Watershed Sciences (“Watershed”) organized a community engagement event at a local high school, with the help of our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Committee. At Watershed,…
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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…
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For a change in Delta perspective, move a few feet
By Jay Lund Each year my family takes a week’s vacation in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta on our old sailboat. We often follow some Delta veterans who show us new places. As an engineering professor working on California’s water problems, I research the Delta mainly as a water supply hub and a flood-prone landscape. Sailing…
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Ten realities for managing the Delta
This article was originally published Feb. 26, 2013 By Peter Moyle I have been working on Delta fishes for nearly 40 years. Increasingly, I have curmudgeonly thoughts about what is needed to make the ecosystem work better. Here I present these thoughts as “Ten Realities” – statements of the obvious that are often overlooked in…
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Q & A on survival of California’s delta smelt
Four years of severe drought and decades of huge water diversions appears to have pushed delta smelt to the point of no return. State biologists netted only a single smelt last month in trawl of 40 sites in San Francisco Estuary, the species’ only home. The record-low catch came less than a month after UC…
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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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New suspense flick on Delta
_____________ Postcard from the Sacramento Delta (2013) 5 min 40 sec — Rated G — Suspense Director: Todd Dayton Cast: Jay Lund, Daniel Wilson The sea is rising and the land is sinking. Aging levees are giving way. Island communities find themselves at the mercy of forces beyond their control. Produced by Fallout Pictures for Greenpeace’s Postcards…
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‘North Delta Arc’ lifts hope for recovery of native fish
By John Durand Matt Young and Denise De Carion thought they had seen about all there is of fish communities in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. They had surveyed nearly the entire web of channels using electrofishing boats in their years of assisting environmental researchers at UC Davis. In all their dozens of sampling runs, the…
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The Delta won’t rise again
By Jay R. Lund Much of the western and central Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has sunk deeply below sea level, and it continues to subside as its marsh soils erode from being drained and farmed. At the same time, sea level is rising. The two trends increase these islands’ likelihood of flooding from major storms, earthquakes,…
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UC Davis speakers series: Critical problems for California water policy
By Chris Austin California’s water future is at a critical juncture. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is declining, both as a reliable hub for exporting water for millions of Californians and millions of farmed acres, and as an ecosystem supporting a vast array of wildlife. The Delta Reform Act of 2009 set a fundamentally new state…
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Ten realities for managing the Delta
By Peter Moyle I have been working on Delta fishes for about 40 years. Increasingly, I have curmudgeonly thoughts about what is needed to make the ecosystem work better. Here I present these thoughts as “Ten Realities” – statements of the obvious that are often overlooked in public debates about the system. Reality No. 1:…
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Knowing Delta’s past offers new ideas forward
By Alison Whipple San Francisco Estuary Institute-Aquatic Science Center Teetering atop a haystack to get his bearings, Sacramento County Surveyor Edwin Sherman observed “dense tules and willows” lining the sloughs that wove through “large tule plains and some grass.” The haystack also afforded him a dry bed at night when high tides inundated the surrounding…
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Reconciling wild things with tamed places – a future for native fish species in the Delta
Peter Moyle, William Bennett, John Durand, William Fleenor, Jay Lund, Jeffrey Mount, University of California – Davis Ellen Hanak, Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco Brian Gray, University of California – Hastings School of Law Today, the Public Policy Institute of California released two reports that look at how California can better manage the…
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Wild Things and the Delta
Jay Lund, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Peter Moyle, Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology University of California – Davis The recent death of Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are, brings some whimsical reflections on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Several quotes from the book seem to have potential lessons…
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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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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…