California WaterBlog

By Jay Lund Most expressions on Western water issues are reflex or studied advocacy favoring a single viewpoint or opposing other viewpoints.  A minority provide thoughtful and reasonably balanced insights.  John Fleck’s new book, “Water is for fighting over” is … Continue reading →

By Josué Medellín-Azuara, Kyaw Tha Paw U, Yufang Jin, Quinn Hart, Eric Kent, Jenae’ Clay, Andy Wong, Andrew Bell, Martha Anderson, Daniel Howes, Forrest Melton, Tariq Kadir, Morteza Orang, Michelle M. Leinfelder-Miles, J. Andres Morande, William Li, and Jay R. … Continue reading →

By Jay Lund Happy New Water Year 2017! Hopefully everyone has recovered from their celebrations. The 2016 drought year is over.  It was milder year than the four previous drought years.  The great wet hope of the “Godzilla” El Nino … Continue reading →

As the old saying goes, “Someone with one watch knows what time it is, someone with two watches is never sure.” Water accounting is fundamental to water management, but is not easy.  But any accounting is more difficult and expensive … Continue reading →

by Tyler Goodearly For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to study fish. Like my idols, Jacques Cousteau, or Steve Irwin, or Jeff Corwin, I too had the “fish itch,” and I knew I must follow this passion. … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

by Ann Willis As the water year comes to an end, we are curious about what topics California Waterblog readers would like to see addressed. Were there water issues you wish we’d written more (or less) about? Take our 5-minute … Continue reading →

by Nicholas Pinter, Nicholas Santos, Rui Hui, Kathleen Schaefer The flooding in Baton Rouge and surrounding areas of Louisiana is a major disaster, claiming an estimated 13 lives and displacing more than 100,000 people from their homes. The National Weather … Continue reading →

by Gus Tolley The Scott River is one of California’s four major undammed streams and important spawning habitat for coho (a species listed as “threatened”) and Chinook salmon. This peaceful and pastoral agricultural valley is at the center of several … Continue reading →

by Josué Medellín-Azuara, Duncan MacEwan, Richard E. Howitt, Daniel A. Sumner, and Jay R. Lund The drought continues for California’s agriculture in 2016, but with much less severe and widespread impacts than in the two previous drought years, 2014 and … Continue reading →

by Jeanette Newmiller In winter quarter 2016, Dr. Colleen Bronner of the UC Davis Department of Civil Engineering gathered a small group of graduate students and posed a challenge. To support new education standards involving teaching engineering methods throughout K-12 … Continue reading →

by Corentin Girard   France and California have different environmental, agricultural, economic, institutional, and cultural contexts. However, both are moving to more local management of groundwater. In California, the 2014 Groundwater Sustainable Management Act required creation of  local Groundwater Sustainable … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund Sustainable use of groundwater in California will require major changes in groundwater management, use, and recharge.  Under the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, groundwater basins as a whole are responsible for sustainability.  But millions of people and … Continue reading →

by Nicholas Pinter A new $37.2[1] million levee in the town of St. Helena, on the floodplain of the Napa River, has a colorful history and has been stirring local acrimony since its inception.  This project illustrates both the attraction … Continue reading →

By Ann Willis As summer begins and stream flows drop throughout California, concerns resurface about whether there’s enough water to support critical ecosystems. Environmental flows have long been a contentious issue, often presented in conflict with existing water use. But … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund California’s combination of climate, native ecosystems, and human uses makes water management inherently hard, unsatisfactory, and evolving.  California is doomed to have difficult and controversial water problems. No matter how successful we are. California is one of … Continue reading →

Celebrating end of the academic year, and the need to grade papers, here is a reprise post from January 29, 2014. There’s only so many acre-feet of water jargon the public can absorb during a drought. Here’s a primer that … Continue reading →

By Vanessa Schipani This post originally appeared on June 9, 2016 on FactCheck.org. The original post can be found here. Peter Moyle, Associate Director at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, and Jeffrey Mount, Senior Fellow at the Public … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

By Jay Lund and William Fleenor Where does water exported from the Delta come from?  And where does the salt in Delta exports come from? Water and salt exported from the Delta comes from several sources: Sacramento River (largest high-quality … Continue reading →