California WaterBlog

by Peter Moyle and Robert Lusardi Removing Shasta Dam is the single best action we can take to save California’s wild salmon.  Not possible, you say? Then there are two alternatives. One is to provide plenty of cold water and … Continue reading →

by Mollie Ogaz   Imagine you are on the bank of a river or stream in California’s Central Valley. It is just past sunset, leaves rustle overhead, and you feel a tingling along your spine. Suddenly a zombie fish leaps … Continue reading →

by Richard Frank This article originally appeared on Water Deeply. You can find the original here. Californians strongly support action by state and federal agencies to ensure that the water in our streams and the water we drink are free … Continue reading →

This year, we have the pleasure of welcoming Dr. Andrew Rypel to UC Davis and the Center for Watershed Sciences to his appointment as the new Peter B. Moyle and California Trout Endowed Chair in Coldwater Fishes. Dr. Rypel shares some of this thoughts about fish, science, … Continue reading →

by Christina Buck, Jim Blanke, Reza Namvar, and Thomas Harter The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) presents many new challenges and opportunities.  One of those challenges is accounting for ‘interbasin flow,’ or subsurface groundwater movement between subbasins, a piece of … Continue reading →

by Jeffrey Mount The UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences turns 20 years old this month.  I am the first Director of the Center.  The current Director — Jay Lund — asked me to write an  account of the origins … Continue reading →

by Tasha Thompson, Michael Miller, Daniel Prince and Sean O’Rourke Spring Chinook and summer steelhead (premature migrators) have been extirpated or are in decline across most of their range while fall Chinook and winter steelhead populations (mature migrators) remain relatively healthy. … Continue reading →

by Katherine Ransom and Thomas Harter In California’s Central Valley, many communities depend significantly or entirely on groundwater as their drinking water supply. Studies estimate the number of private wells in the Central Valley to be on the order of … Continue reading →

by Peter Moyle, Jeff Opperman, Amber Manfree, Eric Larson, and Joan Florshiem The flooding in Houston is a reminder of the great damages that floods can cause when the defenses of an urban area are overwhelmed.  It is hard to … Continue reading →

by Ann Willis, Rob Lusardi, Alex Hart, Susan Hart, Blair Hart, Andrew Braugh, Amy Campbell, Ada Fowler Rancher: farms. Conservationist: fish. Researcher: science. Too often, identity is used to divide us. Stereotypes are used to stake out conflicting positions. It’s … Continue reading →

by Nicholas Pinter, Nicholas Santos, and Rui Hui Located in Harris County, Texas, Houston is the 4th most populous city in the US.  The flooding now unfolding in the Houston area is a human and economic disaster likely to rank … Continue reading →

by Nicholas Pinter This post was originally published as an op-ed in Fortune. Whether or not you like President Donald Trump, the current administration has not been gifted with great timing. Just 10 days before Hurricane Harvey made landfall, the … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund Success in water management requires broad agreement and coalitions.  But people often seem to group themselves into communities of interests and ideology, which see complex water problems differently.  Each group tends to hold different truths to be … Continue reading →

Like fish, the different human professions involved in the Delta have different habitat preferences: Lawyers: high turbidity and fear, complex egosystems, either high and cynical levels of expectation, abundant funds Engineers: high clarity, data-rich nutrient sources, high expectation concentrations, abundant … Continue reading →

by Peter Moyle and James Hobbs The delta smelt is on a trajectory towards extinction in the wild.  Heading into 2017, the spawning adult population was at an all-time low although this past wet winter has apparently seen a small … Continue reading →

by Amanda Fencl and Meghan Klasic California’s drought appears over, at least above ground. As of April 2017, reservoirs were around 2 million acre feet above normal with record breaking snowpack . This is great news for the 75% of Californians that … Continue reading →

by Karrigan Bork, JD, PhD Driving down the 101, you cross a half-mile long bridge over the Santa Maria River into the city of Santa Maria, California. It’s a large bridge, with big levees to constrain the river on either … Continue reading →

by James E. Cloern, Jane Kay, Wim Kimmerer, Jeffrey Mount, Peter B. Moyle, and Anke Mueller-Solger This article originally appeared in the journal San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science.   If we farmed the Central Valley or managed water supplies for … Continue reading →

by Belize Lane, Sam Sandoval, and Sarah Yarnell Alterations to the natural flow regime for human water management activities have degraded river ecosystems worldwide. Such alterations are particularly destructive in regions with highly variable climates like California, where native riverine … Continue reading →

by Jay Lund In 1987, when Mark Reisner published his book Cadillac Desert, I had just begun professing on water management. The book went “viral,” before the word viral had its present-day internet-intoxicated meaning.  The book offered a compelling revisionist … Continue reading →