California WaterBlog

By Thomas Harter, Steph Tai, and Karrigan Bork In 1972, the U.S. Clean Water Act (CWA) created a permit system for point source discharges to navigable waters of the United States – rivers, lakes, and coastal waters – with the … Continue reading →

By Andrew L. Rypel, Gabriel Singer, and Nann A. Fangue “You can’t design a worse evolutionary strategy for the Anthropocene” There are many variants on this quote, and we’ve heard them often in reference to the status of native fishes … Continue reading →

by Dylan K. Stompe Striped bass are an iconic and recreationally-important fish species throughout the United States, including within their native range on the Atlantic Coast. They are also important predators in fish communities within countless reservoirs and estuaries in … Continue reading →

by Peter Moyle, Center for Watershed Sciences, UC Davis Delta smelt are an endangered species and the latest estimates of their numbers indicate they will likely not be around much longer as wild fish. When I first started working on … Continue reading →

by Nestle J. Frobish Today the Megalopolitan Water District of California (a consortium of southern California and Bay Area urban water suppliers) proposed building a new aqueduct to take water from the Sacramento River to Bay Area and southern California … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund Not again! There was not a “Miracle March” to follow California’s precipitation “Flat-line February.”  Instead, we’ve had a “Meh March.” With the near-end of its wet season, California’s 2020 water year is and will be dry.  The … Continue reading →

By Alyssa Obester, Sarah Yarnell, and Ted Grantham The California Environmental Flow Framework was recently highlighted in the 2020 Water Resilience Portfolio to address the seemingly impossible task of establishing of how much water our rivers and streams need to … Continue reading →

By Karrigan Bork, Andrew L. Rypel, and Peter Moyle Science-based decision making is key to improved conservation management and a legal mandate in the US Endangered Species Act.  Thus supporters of federal efforts to increase water exports from the Central … Continue reading →

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 →