Tag: John Durand
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Change at the Center for Watershed Sciences
By Karrigan Börk Readers of the California Water Blog (Blog) may have noticed some changes over the past year. The Blog is a product of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences (CWS), and after many years of dedicated service, longtime CWS leaders Dr. Andrew Rypel (Director) and Dr. Cathryn Lawrence (Assistant Director) are transitioning…
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Newly Listed Smelt in the Delta
By Karrigan Börk, John Durand, Nann Fangue, and Levi Lewis Late last summer, on August 29th, 2024, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service listed the San Francisco Bay-Delta distinct population segment of longfin smelt (Spirinchus thaleichthys) as ‘endangered’ under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). With this decision, the Longfin Smelt joins the Delta…
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Dear Santa: A California Water Holiday Wish List
by folks at UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences: Karrigan Börk, John Durand, Jay Lund, Christine Parisek, Andrew Rypel, Kathleen Schaefer, Jonathan Walter (authors listed alphabetically, and all are now PhDs. Congratulations to Doctors Parisek and Schaefer!) ‘Tis the season of gift-giving (and gift-seeking). So we thought a California Water Holiday wish list might be…
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Growing food for ducks and fish in seasonally flooded managed wetlands
By Kyle Phillips, Alice Tung, Teejay O’Rear, John Durand In a recent publication in Freshwater Biology, UC Davis researchers found that waterfowl food-plants in managed wetlands of Suisun Marsh can boost plankton production by an order of magnitude compared to plants in open tidal habitats. Suisun Marsh is one of the largest tidal wetlands on the west coast…
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Systematic assessments of non-native fishes in the San Francisco Estuary
By Lynette Williams Duman, Elsie Platzer, and John Durand An invaded estuary There is widespread concern about the effect of introduced species on native species. The San Francisco Estuary (SFE) is a highly invaded system (Cohen and Carlton 1995), with a mix of native and introduced species that didn’t evolve together. Humans introduced non-native species in a…
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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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Picture this research – a photo blog from the Center for Watershed Sciences
by Scientists at CWS Holidays are a natural time of introspection on who we are, what we do, and why. Towards a bit of our own self-reflection, some researchers from UC Davis’ Center for Watershed Sciences (CWS) have each contributed a photo and short description of their work. We hope you enjoy reading about us…
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Initial Sampling of the Carp-DEUM Project
By Kim Luke, John Durand, Rachel McConnell, Aaron Sturtevant, Nina Suzuki, Andrew L. Rypel This spring, the Carp-Dependent Urgent Management (Carp-DEUM) Project began its first round of sampling in the UC Davis Arboretum before the Covid-19 lockdown. The project has two planned phases; a population estimate of common carp (and other arboretum fishes) in the…
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Resurrecting the Delta for Desirable Fishes
by Peter Moyle, Carson Jeffres, John Durand The Delta is described in many ways. When extolling the Delta as a tourist destination, it is described as a place of bucolic beauty; islands of productive farmland are threaded by meandering channels of sparkling water, a place to boat, fish, view wildlife, and grow cherries and pears. But…
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Advice on Voluntary Settlements for California’s Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan Part 3: Science for Ecosystem Management
by Jeffrey Mount, PPIC Water Policy Center* Recommendation Improving Delta ecosystem functions under the State Water Board’s proposed Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan will require a complex series of changes to water and land management—and a strong science program to guide actions. This science effort will need to go well beyond current Delta science programs…
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Advice on Voluntary Settlements for California’s Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan Part 2: Recommended Actions to Improve Ecological Function in the Delta
by Jeffrey Mount, PPIC Water Policy Center* Recommendation By strategically linking freshwater flow releases with the management of tidal energy and investments in landscape changes in the Delta, it is possible to improve ecological food webs and habitat for native species and reduce the effects of pollutants. Projects to address these problems should be concentrated…
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Advice on Voluntary Settlements for California’s Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan Part 1: Addressing a Manageable Suite of Ecosystem Problems
by Jeffrey Mount, PPIC Water Policy Center Recommendation The State Water Resources Control Board and the parties seeking to incorporate voluntary settlement agreements in the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan should identify a specific, tractable set of problems that can be addressed over the next 15 years through this plan. We urge the participants to…
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Blacklock Marsh: Tidal Habitat No Panacea for Thoughtful Restoration
by John Durand and Peter Moyle Returning open tidal exchange to diked lands is a primary goal of Delta restoration, driven by the 2008 Biological Opinion from USFWS. This document requires 8000 acres of tidal and subtidal habitat to be created. California EcoRestore is coordinating with state and federal agencies to restore at least 30,000…
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Reconciling conservation and human use in the Delta
By John Durand, Peter Moyle, and Amber Manfree In a previous blog, we presented a Grand Scheme for habitat conservation in the North Delta Arc (the Arc). This follows up on our earlier broad vision for recreating a Delta more friendly to its native species. In this essay, we give philosophical and historical reasons to approach…
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The North Delta Habitat Arc: an Ecosystem Strategy for Saving Fish
Peter Moyle, John Durand, Amber Manfree. Center for Watershed Sciences, University of California, Davis. Delta native fishes are in desperate condition. Over 90% of fish sampled by diverse means belong to non-native species. Native species such as delta smelt are on a trajectory to extinction. If we are going to reverse this trend, we need…
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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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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…