Tag: floodplain
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Making every drop count in drought – and deluge
By Joshua Viers and Graham Fogg A little publicized but highly curious part of the emergency drought legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last month advances hundreds of millions of dollars to shore up and replace aging levees in flood prone areas of the state. Drought relief through better flood control? Really? As it turns…
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Innovations in floodplain modeling: A test-drive on the Yolo Bypass
High-resolution simulation of 2006 flooding in Yolo Bypass Video shows a swollen Sacramento River spilling over the Fremont weir into the 57,000-acre floodway. Notice that the floodwaters spread through individual irrigation ditches and drains, the blue hues darkening as levels rise. Hydraulic models need such fine detail when the acreage at stake is relatively small –…
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A sweet spot for farms and fish on a floodplain
By Richard Howitt and Josué Medellín-Azuara For decades, Sacramento area freeway commuters have been treated to a carousel of contrasting landscapes as they cross a vast floodplain known as the Yolo Bypass. The carousel rotates by the season. In wet winters, the rain-swollen Sacramento River spills into the bypass, which is designed as a relief…
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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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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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The benefits of floodplain reconnection
By Jeffrey Mount For more than a century, California has sought to separate floodplains from rivers. An elaborate array of levees and dams usually confine, divert or capture winter floods, supporting agriculture on rich floodplain soils and unreliably protecting urban growth in flood-prone areas. Nowhere is this approach more evident than the Central Valley. One…
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Woodman, spare that levee?
Jay Lund, the Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis Policy debates sometimes seem to tragically miss the big picture. The current debate on levee vegetation in California is an example. Both sides assert noble and worthy causes—environmental and recreation interests favor trees and bushes on levees and public…
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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…
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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…