Tag: UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences
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Managing for multiple stressors in the Delta
Ellen Hanak1, Jay Lund2, Peter Moyle3, Jeffrey Mount4, Brian Gray5 and Barton “Buzz” Thompson6 Across California, native fish populations are in sharp decline, despite decades of well-intentioned efforts to reverse the effects of harmful water and land management policies (Hanak et al., 2011). As more fish species have been listed under the federal and…
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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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No going back for the Delta, but which way forward?
Jay Lund, Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis Peter Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, University of California – Davis Ellen Hanak, Senior Fellow, Public Policy Institute of California, San Francisco Jeffrey Mount, Professor of Geology, University of California – Davis “Restore” is a common cry for environmental problems. For the Sacramento-San…
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Suction dredging is bad for fish
Peter B. Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, UC Davis Suction dredging seems like a fairly innocent pastime. A few folks go to a stream on a nice summer day with a portable device to suck tiny amounts of gold out of a stream bottom. The device basically is a floating sluice box equipped with a…
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Can California further reduce urban water use?
Jay Lund, the Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering, UC Davis Ryan Cahill, graduate student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Davis Reducing urban water use has become a major long-term policy goal. In 2009, California adopted a policy of further reducing urban water use by 20 percent per capita by 2020. …
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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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The Delta, in 3-D
Jay Lund, UC Davis Professor of Engineering Time and tide wait for no man, and change in the Delta won’t wait for a computer model either. Continued land subsidence and sea level rise, increasing likelihood of a major earthquake, and rising chances of major floods all pose serious threats to subsided islands in the…
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Water—Who uses how much?
Whereas agriculture used to consume 80 percent of the state’s water supply, today 46 percent of captured and stored water goes to environmental purposes, such as rebuilding wetlands. Meanwhile 43 percent goes to farming and 11 percent to municipal uses. — The Economist, October 2009 By Jeffrey Mount This excerpt is from an article that…
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Stressed Out—Dealing with the Delta’s non-native landscape
Jay R. Lund, Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis Peter Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, University of California – Davis Jeffrey Mount, Professor of Geology, University of California – Davis Ellen Hanak, Public Policy Institute of California William Fleenor, Research Engineer, University of California – Davis The Delta’s…
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Taking agricultural conservation seriously
Jay Lund1, Ellen Hanak2, Richard Howitt3, Ariel Dinar4, Brian Gray5, Jeffrey Mount6, Peter Moyle7, Barton “Buzz” Thompson8 For decades, people have observed that human water use in California is largely devoted to irrigating farmland, and they have therefore assumed that farms are the obvious places to save water. Our recent book, Managing California’s…
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Sea level rise and Delta subsidence—the demise of subsided Delta islands
Jay R. Lund, the Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering, University of California – Davis Periodically, scientists point to the weaknesses of levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The press and policy makers respond with astonishment, followed by local assertions of levee sustainability and pleas for greater subsidies. This cycle has recurred several times…
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What’s next for California water?
Jay Lund, UC Davis, Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering California faces yet another period of transition in water management, with attendant turmoil and uncertainties. Since statehood, California’s landscape, society, economy, government, and environment have undergone a series of great changes. So going through another shift, while dramatic, is not especially shocking. Water management…
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Delta “chicken” – A tragedy
Jay Lund, UC Davis, Ray B. Krone Professor of Environmental Engineering Few dispute the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta’s poor and deteriorating condition—for native fishes, many landowners, and water users locally and statewide—and the subsequent need for major changes in Delta policy. Most parties understand that without a credible comprehensive solution, continued deterioration will become more…
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Reconciliation or extinction—the future of California?
By Peter Moyle It is easy to be pessimistic about the future of familiar life on this planet, especially here in California. We face an ever-growing human population, the rise of consumerism, and the refusal of most Americans to recognize that their life style is a major contributor to the problem. Climate change also threatens…