Tag: Sarah Yarnell
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What’s next in river science? Takeaways from the International Symposium of River Science (ISRS) conference
By Miranda Bell-Tilcock and Sarah Yarnell . . . A big thank you to everyone who attended the International Symposium of River Science (ISRS) conference, hosted by the Center for Watershed Sciences (CWS)! The International Symposium of River Science (ISRS) conference took place October 6th–9th and featured 4 days of speakers hailing from across the…
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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…
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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,…
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International Approaches to Freshwater Management
By Nicholas Pinter and Sarah Yarnell In late June and July of this year, UC Davis convened an Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) on “International Approaches to Freshwater Management,” bringing 11 top graduate students from across the US to study rivers and management systems in California, Italy, and the Netherlands. ASIs are funded by the National…
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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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Announcing the 7th International Symposium on River Science
The International Society for River Science (ISRS) will hold the 7th International Symposium on River Science at the University of California, Davis on October 6-9, 2025. We invite you to attend! The first river symposium was held in 1979 in Norway, and rivers conferences have continued through the decades since, across the globe. Recent conferences…
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Lessons from the California Environmental Flows Framework and Opportunities for Chile
By Camila Boettiger, Karrigan Börk, Roberto Ponce Oliva, Diego Rivera, Jay Lund, and Sarah Yarnell Managing waterways for ecosystems with minimal loss to existing water uses is increasingly difficult. As we’ve discussed in the first two blogs in this series (here and here, now with Spanish language translations), California and Chile both struggle with this challenge. Both…
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A Functional Flows approach for Environmental Flows in Chile
by Sarah Yarnell, Diego Rivera Salazar, Camila Boettiger, and Jay Lund Countries, regions, and river basins globally are struggling to provide and manage flows in rivers for ecosystems. One approach, of many, is a Functional Flows approach, because it seeks to provide a range of streamflows over the year and between years to support fundamental…
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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,…
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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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What’s the dam problem with deadbeat dams?
by Andrew L. Rypel, Christine A. Parisek, Jay Lund, Ann Willis, Peter B. Moyle, Sarah Yarnell, Karrigan Börk *this is a repost of a blog originally published in June 2020. Damming rivers was once a staple of public works and a signal of technological and scientific progress. Even today, dams underpin much of California’s public…
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Considerations for Developing An Environmental Water Right in California
By Karrigan Börk, Andrew L. Rypel, Sarah Yarnell, Ann Willis, Peter B. Moyle, Josué Medellín-Azuara, Jay Lund, and Robert Lusardi This week, news emerged of a State Senate plan that would spend upwards of $1.5B to purchase senior water rights from California growers. Under California’s first-in-time, first-in-right water allocation system, senior water rights are filled…
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Celebrating Black Scientists in Fisheries & Biology
By Kim Luke, Christine Parisek, Rachelle Tallman, Marissa Levinson, Sarah Yarnell, Miranda Bell Tilcock, Andrew Rypel, and Jay Lund In honor of Black History Month, the Center for Watershed Sciences would like to highlight the contributions of Black scientists in our field. These prominent researchers have not only pushed the social and scientific boundaries of…
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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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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…
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Ecogeomorphology: A Transformative Expedition Education
This week, the Center for Watershed Sciences is proud to feature our flagship education course, Ecogeomorphology. What began as a collaboration between then-Professors Jeffrey Mount and Peter Moyle to introduce students to cross-discipline thinking in expedition settings has developed into a transformative opportunity for the select graduate and undergraduate students to experience a range of settings…
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Cue the Frogs! Water signatures, environmental cues and climate change
By Ryan Peek, Helen Dahlke, and Sarah Yarnell An organism’s success relies on responding to environmental cues that trigger activities such as breeding, migration, feeding, predator evasion, etc. Responses can be finely tuned to specific cues, or may require multiple triggers. For example, changes in day length and air temperature cue many bird migrations over…
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Wanted: student scientists looking for inspiration and adventure
By Sarah Yarnell and Ann Willis Every spring for the past 12 years, a class of a dozen or so UC Davis undergraduates ride a river in the American West for a learning adventure like none other in their college life. Whether rafting the Colorado through the Grand Canyon, plying the undammed Skeena in British…
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How dam operators can breathe more life into rivers
By Sarah Yarnell Dams are no friend to biodiversity. Once impounded, a river answers first and foremost to human needs, be it water supply, energy production or flood protection. Releases are measured and timed to satisfy these demands. As a result, the river downstream loses much of its natural variability in timing, volume and spread of…