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California WaterBlog

Tag: functional flows

  • The search for flow metrics that support fish success – case study in Scott River, Siskiyou County, California

    By Claire Kouba, Sarah Yarnell, Leland Scantlebury, and Thomas Harter How much water do fish really need, and is it possible to ask the fish? One approach to answering this question is to monitor the abundance of a local fish population over many years, and determine the degree to which observed streamflow correlates with fishery…

  • Representing interannual variability for environmental flow operations: the functional flow regime

    By Lindsay Murdoch, Sarah Yarnell, and Jay Lund California’s local communities and native ecosystems alike have adapted to cycles of flood, drought, and a healthy portion of everything in between. Our river management, on the other hand, has fallen out of natural balance and tends to oscillate between insufficient minimum flows and emergency flood responses,…

  • Functional Flows are Good for California’s Native Fishes

    By Sarah Yarnell, Ethan Baruch, Andrew L. Rypel, and Rob Lusardi As California grapples with ongoing water management challenges, the question of “how much water to leave in streams” to support native fishes and aquatic species often arises. There is no easy answer to this question, as evidenced by the more than 200 environmental flow assessment methods that exist…

  • Minimum Flow Laws in California and Chile

    By Camila Boettiger, Karrigan Börk, Roberto Ponce Oliva, Diego Rivera, Jay Lund, and Sarah Yarnell California and Chile share a history of water allocation with little regard for instream uses of water, especially environmental uses. In California, for example, many water rights were obtained with no consideration of the environmental impacts of the water use,…

  • Functional Flows for Developing Ecological Flow Recommendations

    by Sarah Yarnell, Alyssa Obester, Ted Grantham, Eric Stein, Belize Lane, Rob Lusardi, Julie Zimmerman, Jeanette Howard, Sam Sandoval-Solis, Rene Henery, and Erin Bray To protect California’s native aquatic species, stream flows need to be managed to support important ecological processes and habitat needs. In practice, such flows are difficult and controversial to define and…