When UC Davis genetics PhD candidate Donnelly West was asked to write a song about the drought, she thought to herself, "Who better to tell us about drought than a fish? Fresh from a live performance at the recent UC Drought Summit, here’s Donnelly, with a studio recording of the "Smelt Song.”
California’s drought will deal a severe blow to Central Valley irrigated agriculture and farm communities this year, costing the industry $1.7 billion and causing more than 14,500 workers to lose their jobs, according to preliminary results of a new study by the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. Click here to read more.
California needs to start making smart choices now about how to get the most out of every drop of rainfall, University of California experts said during a state Capitol summit on the impacts and implications of the current drought — one the most severe dry spells on record. “We need to do a much better job of getting more ecological pop per drop,” said Joshua Viers of UC Merced. The UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences organized the public conference in the state Capitol, attended by about 250.
The California drought.
How bad is it? What caused it?
How long will it last? Can we drought-proof California?
Our ongoing Nigiri Project, a collaborative salmon-rearing experiment on Yolo Bypass rice fields, made for a drought-related cover story in today's San Francisco Chronicle.
The Center associate director Peter Moyle said growing salmon on an agriculturally reclaimed floodplain like the bypass floodway could actually work better than on natural floodplains during a drought.
A UC Davis Magazine profile of the Center for Watershed Sciences spotlights its field and laboratory director, Carson Jeffres, shown snorkeling on Big Springs Creek near Mount Shasta. The six-page feature also highlights the research group's leadership in the current California drought. The Center is organizing students, faculty and staff from across UC campuses for and April 25 state Capitol summit, to discuss with other experts and policymakers how best to manage immediate and long-term water shortages.
Two UC Davis researchers have each been awarded a $60,000 grant to initiate California river projects.
Jay Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, and Michael Miller, an assistant professor of genetics, are among 11 recipients announced Friday (March 7) by the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS).
The center's Cosumnes Research Group expects to save much time and effort surveying Sacramento area watersheds by air rather than on foot, using a hobbyist's low-flying rotocraft mounted with a camera and GPS unit. Joanna Nguyen, a UC Davis sophomore, produced the video — her first as a center videographer.
We have VIDEO of the past 8 talks. One more coming up!
The Center for Watershed Sciences is organizing faculty from all UC campuses and other California universities to present a daylong Drought Science, Policy and Management Summit on April 25 at the State Capitol.
Registration opens April 1 at drought.ucdavis.edu
The summit will bring together a wide range of experts in water sciences, water management and policymaking for thoughtful discussion on how best to manage current and long-term water shortages.
Because of California's extremely dry conditions, the Sacramento Valley's big "atmospheric river" storm of Feb. 8-9 didn't make much of a dent in the state's water deficit. Valley rivers shrank as soon as they swelled, as you see in this chronological photo series of the Consumes River south of Sacramento.
Past droughts show that the current water shortage is not only a challenge, but also "an opportunity for making California's water system better able to support its cities, farms and environment," says Ellen Hanak, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). Hanak's comments appeared recently in the San Francisco Chronicle as an Op-Ed co-authored by Jay Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, and Jeffrey Mount, center co-founder and a PPIC senior fellow.
Dozens of students, scientists and policymakers went online Feb. 7, 2014 to watch this webinar produced by the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy, a key partner of the Center for Watershed Sciences.
In the environment magazine Ensia, Center for Watershed Sciences affiliates Joshua Viers and Sarah Null discuss research aimed at helping California dam operators figure out how to dial in suitable temperatures and flows to sustain native fish in a warming climate.
The Universities Council of Water Resources has named Jay Lund winner of its 2014 Warren A. Hall Medal. The award recognizes research, teaching and public service that have made "significant and lasting impacts" upon the field of water resources. Lund is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis. Read more
Jay Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, calls for a special drought environmental water market, so that growers, urbanites and others who gain from relaxed environmental standards help compensate the losers.
The latest Outlook magazine of the College of Environmental and Agricultural Sciences features Kaya Mac Millen (Class of 2013) and his work in a Center for Watershed Sciences floodplain study in the Cosumnes River Preserve, south of Sacramento. Read more
California Water Policy Seminar Series
Winter 2014 ~ Mondays, 4:10 pm - 5:30 pm ~ 146 Olson Hall ~ Open to public
William C. Clark of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government will talk about how UC Davis and other academic institutions can transform knowledge into action for sustainability. The free public talk is part of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute’s Distinguished Speakers Series. The Center for Watershed Sciences is a co-sponsor of the event.
When: Tuesday, Jan. 14., 5 pm – 6:30 pm
Where: Multipurpose Room, Student Community Center, UC Davis
Take a trip to the front lines of the Endangered Species Act in Peter Moyle's latest commentary, "40 years of swimming upstream to save fish", published Dec. 29 in The Sacramento Bee.
Join us Monday, Jan. 6, for a public lecture and conversation on "reconciliation ecology" with Michael Rosenzweig, a University of Arizona ecologist and evolutionary biologist who has inspired, entertained and provoked professional and lay audiences alike with his ideas for saving species in a post-wild world.
In an Associated Press interview Monday (Dec. 9, 2013) the Center director Jay Lund said the goal of the state's Bay Delta Conservation Plan is not to increase the amount of water being sent to cities and Central Valley farms, but to make the conveyance less environmentally damaging.
Peter Moyle has been documenting the status of California native fishes for as long as the United States has had an Endangered Species Act. That would 40 years, as of this month. In today's California Water Blog post, the UC Davis professor of fish biology makes a case for removing the Central Valley steelhead from the federal government's list of species threatened or endangered with extinction - based on new information that became available because of the law.