California WaterBlog
When do water bonds pass? Lessons from past elections
By Cassidy Craford and Hannah Safford Californians cite drought and water-supply challenges as some of the most important environmental issues facing the state today. A whopping 85% of California voters agree that water supply is a “big problem” or “somewhat … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Portfolio Solutions for Safe Drinking Water – Multiple Barriers
by Jay Lund Only some parts of the world have safe drinking water almost ubiquitously, and only in the last century. (We lucky few!) In these countries, drinking water safety relies on a complex portfolio of actions and accountability … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Climate Warming Brings New Water to California’s Delta
April 1, 2019 By Nestle J. Frobish The California Department of Water Resources is working to employ the ongoing break-up of the Antarctic ice cap to provide a vast supply of water for California. Current plans are to employ ocean … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Groundwater and agriculture: a comparison of managing scarcity and droughts in France and California
By Josselin Rouillard Overview of French and Californian agricultural groundwater management France and California face a common challenge of managing overdraft in intensively exploited aquifers. As of 2018, large areas of France and California have overexploited groundwater (see maps below). … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Portfolio Solutions for Water Supply
by Jay Lund “Water problems in the western United States, when viewed from afar, can seem tantalizingly easy to solve: all we need to do is turn off the fountains at the Bellagio, stop selling hay to China, ban golf, … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Portfolio Solutions for Water – Flood Management
by Jay Lund The tweet below, shows slight (but still frightening) levee overtopping this week on Cache Creek, just north of Woodland, California. It also illustrates the combined operations of flood preparation and response, with a simultaneous floodplain evacuation order. … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Tough Fish in a Harsh Place: Red Hills Roach
by Peter B. Moyle Red Hills Roach are small (adults are 60-70 mm in total length) bronzy minnows that live in a challenging environment. They survive in a few small streams that start as seeps in a hot dry landscape, … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
The sociology of science in environmental management: Reflections on “Fields and Streams”
by Jay Lund Most readers of this blog are water management wonks who toil in the bureaucracies and professions of water management, the water-industrial complex, so to speak. We mostly work on technical issues and internal and inter-organizational rules and … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Roaches of California: Hidden Biodiversity in a Native Minnow
by Peter B. Moyle If you inspect small streams in northern California, including those that seem too small or warm for any fish, you will often see minnows swimming in the clear water. Chances are you are seeing a … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
15 Years of the San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Sciences – Open Access Journal
By Lisa Howard originally published January 21, 2019 When the peer-reviewed journal San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science launched fifteen years ago, the editors chose what was then a somewhat new model of scientific publication known as “open access.” At … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Droughts and progress – Lessons from California’s 2012-2016 Drought
By Jay Lund, Josue Medellin, John Durand, and Kathleen Stone Droughts and floods have always tested water management, driven water systems improvements, and helped water organizations and users maintain focus and discipline. California’s 2012-2016 drought and the very wet 2017 … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Improving public perception of water reuse
By Kahui Lim and Hannah Safford Water reuse is becoming more important to water security in arid regions like California. The California Recycled Water Policy calls for an increase of 1 million acre-feet of reused water per year by 2020 … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Shared interest in universal safe drinking water
by Jay Lund Public health is every society’s and every drinking water system’s most fundamental objective. The prosperity and existence of civilizations rest on drinking water being safe, available and affordable. Prosperity and democracy together seem almost essential to having … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Functional Flows for Developing Ecological Flow Recommendations
by Sarah Yarnell, Alyssa Obester, Ted Grantham, Eric Stein, Belize Lane, Rob Lusardi, Julie Zimmerman, Jeanette Howard, Sam Sandoval-Solis, Rene Henery, and Erin Bray To protect California’s native aquatic species, stream flows need to be managed to support important ecological … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
The folly of unimpaired flows for water quality management
by Ann Willis Unimpaired streamflow has long been the benchmark against which current stream flows are evaluated for environmental purposes. The underlying assumption is that if there is water in a stream, the stream must be healthy. A closer look … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Striped Bass in the San Francisco Estuary: Insight Into a Forgotten Past
by Dylan Stompe and Peter Moyle Striped bass are well known throughout California as a hard-fighting game fish, excellent table fare, and a voracious predator on other fish. Striped bass were introduced into the San Francisco Estuary in 1879 and … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Eastern San Joaquin Valley and other CA drinking water supplies at risk in the next drought
by Amanda Fencl, Rich Pauloo, Alvar Escriva-Bou, Hervé Guillon During the 2012-2016 drought, the state received more than 2,500 domestic well failure reports, the majority of which were in the Central Valley (DWR 2018). This left thousands of people without a … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Getting Strategic about Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation in California
by Jeanette Howard, Kurt Fesenmyer, Theodore Grantham, Joshua Viers, Peter Ode, Peter Moyle, Sarah Kupferberg, Joseph Furnish, Andrew Rehn, Joseph Slusark, Raphael Mazor, Nicholas Santos, Ryan Peek, and Amber Wright An essential first step to protect biodiversity is understanding what species … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
U.C. Davis Law’s Environmental Law Center Releases Proposition 3 White Paper
by Richard Frank This article originally appeared on Legal Planet on October 31, 2018 The U.C. Davis School of Law’s California Environmental Law & Policy Center has published a detailed analysis of one of the most controversial initiative measures facing … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related
Opportunities for Science Collaboration and Funding in the Delta
by Aston Tennefoss The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) is central to California’s water supply system, and serves a diverse group of stakeholders, including local, state, and federal agencies, elected officials, and water users. Its islands, channels, and wetlands also are … Continue reading →
Categories: California Water Related