News and Announcements

In a paper published this week, the Center's associate director Joshua Viers makes a case for accelerating "vinecology" -- the integration of ecological and viticultural practices -- in regions with Mediterranean-type climate.

The state’s water resources director Mark Cowin is scheduled to deliver the final talk in the Center’s California water policy speakers series on Monday, March 18. The topic is "California’s evolution towards integrated water management." The public is welcome to attend the 4:10 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. presentation at 1227 Haring Hall.

Jeffrey Mount, a recently retired professor of geology and founding director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, tells KQED radio that California will need to move southbound export water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to comply with current laws that put water needs and the environment on equal footing.

KQED Science Editor Craig Miller caught up with Mount aboard his 27-foot cruiser, “Tugnacious.” An edited version of their conversation aired March 1.

California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird is scheduled to address some of the state's most pressing water issues Monday, Feb. 25, 4:10 pm to 5:30 pm, in 1227 Haring.

Salmon and rice may go nicely together on the dinner plate, but can they get along growing up? The Center's fish biologists want to know, because baby Chinook salmon once flourished in the same Sacramento Valley floodplains where mostly rice is grown today.

To find out, researchers on Feb. 19 released 50,000 juvenile salmon into a flooded 20-acre rice field north of Woodland. Learn and see more in today's Sacramento Bee

Peter Moyle, one of the foremost experts on California’s freshwater fish, is scheduled to talk about the future of the species Monday, Feb.11, 4:10 pm to 5:30 pm, in 1227 Haring.

Moyle is a UC Davis professor of fish biology and an associate director of the university's Center for Watershed Sciences. He authored Inland Fishes of California, the definitive reference on the subject. His research has strongly influenced state and federal management of endangered fish.

The Center for Watershed Sciences thanks the 14 water researchers who volunteered to muddy themselves Monday in the Yolo Bypass -- all in the interest of science. They were installing fine-mesh holding pens for baby salmon in a harvested rice field. The enclosures are part of an experiment to see whether floodplains reclaimed for agriculture can be effectively managed to help save Chinook salmon from extinction. Next month, the field will be flooded and stocked with thousands of tagged hatchery fingerlings.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has a lengthy application process for hydropower companies looking to extend their operating licenses another 30 to 50 years. But it does not consider how climate change will affect the dams and rivers.

The Center for Watershed Sciences is hosting a weekly series of public speakers on California water policy this winter, beginning Jan. 7.

The California Water Policy Seminar Series is on Mondays, 4:10 pm to 5:30 pm, at 1227 Haring (updated 1/14/2013).

The series is open to the public and available for credit. [Graduates: 1 unit as ECI 296 (CRN 50116); undergraduates: 1 unit as ECI 98 (CRN 49768)]. For an extended graduate seminar on water policy (1 unit ECI 298) contact Professor Lund at jrlund@ucdavis.edu.

Who says peer reviewers go unrecognized? The American Society of Civil Engineers' Journal of Energy Engineering has named the Center's David Rheinheimer a "2012 Outstanding Reviewer," for the critical thinking and knowledge he brings to vetting articles submitted for publication. Rheinheimer, an environmental engineer, is currently studying the world's largest hydropower project -- Three Gorges Dam -- as a post-doctoral researcher at Wuhan University in China.

Two top California water managers have singled out the Center's Yolo Bypass project as "one of the nation's best examples" of multi-benefit flood management. In a commentary published Oct. 27 in The Sacramento Bee, Bill Edgar, president of the state's Central Valley Flood Protection Board, and Mark Cowin, director of the state Department of Water Resources, said: