California WaterBlog

By Kim Luke and Brian Williamson The UC Davis Arboretum is a defining feature of the campus. Students, faculty, and ducks alike all enjoy the waterway that was once a part of Putah Creek. Many organisms call the Arboretum “home”, … Continue reading →

by Peter Moyle, Dylan Stompe, and John Durand The Sacramento splittail is a lovely, silvery-white fish that lives primarily in Suisun Marsh, the north Delta and other parts of the San Francisco Estuary (SFE; Moyle et al. 2004). The name … Continue reading →

    By Jay Lund February has been amazingly dry in California, if anyone hasn’t noticed.  No precipitation at all in February, a dry forecast, about 51% of seasonal Sacramento Valley precipitation (a bit less for the San Joaquin and … Continue reading →

by Andrew L. Rypel It was perhaps unsurprising I wound up a field ecologist. Raised in Wisconsin, I spent almost all my childhood free time roaming largely unchaperoned in nature, pre-internet. It was there that I developed a deep love … Continue reading →

By Bill Fleenor, Amber Manfree, and Megan Nguyen This is a re-posting from January 22, 2017.  Reminders on how things work are sometimes useful. (The whole series, with links below, is thought-provoking.) In 2010, John DeGeorge of RMA, Inc used … Continue reading →

by Kat Kerlin My husband and I fell in love a couple of months ago. It was with a house by a river. (See what I did there?) This is the river that was a stone’s throw away when we … Continue reading →

by Peter Moyle The striped bass is a favorite sport fish in the San Francisco Estuary (SFE), especially the Delta, because of its large size, sporting qualities, and tasty flesh. Historically, it supported major commercial and sport fisheries but the … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund The 1957 California Water Plan was ambitious for its time, and successful in its own way for a time. This plan was the ultimate major water project development plan arising from a century of struggles to orient … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund Conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are changing, changing in new ways, and changing rapidly.  Changes are rampant not only in climate, but also in ecosystem structure, economic structure and globalization, invasive species, infrastructure, water demands, environmental … Continue reading →

by Peter Moyle, Karrigan Bork, John Durand, Tien-Chieh Hung, Andrew Rypel A recent biological opinion (BiOp) released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) concluded that a proposed  re-operation of California’s largest water projects will avoid driving the federally … Continue reading →

By Josué Medellín-Azuara, Jay Lund and Richard Howitt Reposted from Apr 28, 2015 (an oldie, but goodie!) Some of the most popular drought stories lately have been on the amount of what water needed to produce food from California, as a consumer … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund California’s water policy community continues to be embroiled on how best to manage what remains of California’s native aquatic ecosystems, particularly for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and its tributaries.  One aspect of this controversy is the dedication … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund California’s water policy community continues to be embroiled on how best to manage what remains of California’s native aquatic ecosystems, particularly for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and its tributaries.  One aspect of this controversy is the dedication … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund So far, October and November 2019 has been the driest (or almost the driest) beginning of any recorded water year with almost zero precipitation. (The 2020 water year began October 1, 2019 – so you might have … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund Here is part two of a partial collection of truisms on water management.  These ideas seem obviously true, but still offer insights and perspective.  Original sources are mostly unknown (but apocryphal citations are common).  Any that I … Continue reading →

by Kelly Neal and Gabe Saron On a cool and misty morning somewhere south of Redding, California, jet boats roar across the tranquil Sacramento River. Armed with tridents, machetes and poleaxes, it seems akin to a scene from an action … Continue reading →

by Ann Willis We are all sinners. At least, that’s the impression Mark Arax leaves in The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California. What’s bold, and distinguishes this book from others about California, is that Arax grapples with … Continue reading →

This is my favorite water cartoon.  It depicts how well the public (and elected officials) will ever understand how water systems work. Today, as individuals we understand only a little about the detailed world around us (cell phones, medical technology, … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund Here is a partial collection of truisms on water management.  These are common ideas that seem obviously true (particularly in the western US), but still offer insights and perspective.  The original sources of these are unknown (although … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund Just a brief, and slightly pedantic, blog post this week on the importance of liberal education and broad thinking for those want to solve real problems, illustrated with a bit of history. Engineers and physical scientists will … Continue reading →