The Perennial Streams Assessment (PSA): An Assessment of Biological Condition using the New California Stream Condition Index (CSCI)

California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) | June 1st, 2015

PSA stream surveys found that the majority of stream length in the Sierra Nevada and North Coast is in good biological condition, while the majority of stream len

PSA stream surveys found that the majority of stream length in the Sierra Nevada and North Coast is in good biological condition, while the majority of stream length in the South Coast, Chaparral and Central Valley is in poor or very poor condition. Similarly, most of the stream length draining forested watersheds is in good condition, while most of the stream length draining watersheds dominated by agricultural and urban land use is in poor or very poor condition. On average, stream condition showed no directional change over time, either for better or for worse. Streams where phosphorous concentration or riparian disturbance exceeded thresholds had the greatest relative risk of biological impairment.  

The Pine Flat Project on Kings River, California

Kings River Water Users Committee | December 1st, 1979

The potential of collaborative solutions to improve management of California (United States) wildlands

Restoration Ecology, Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) | November 13th, 2024

The potential of urban irrigation for counteracting carbon-climate feedback

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | March 18th, 2024

The Press and Pulse of Climate Change: Extreme Events in the Colorado River Basin

American Water Resources Association (AWRA) | June 21st, 2022

Extremes in temperature and precipitation are associated with damaging floods, prolonged drought, destructive wildfires, agricultural challenges, compromised human health

Extremes in temperature and precipitation are associated with damaging floods, prolonged drought, destructive wildfires, agricultural challenges, compromised human health, vulnerable infrastructure, and threatened ecosystems and species. Often, the steady and progressive trends (or presses) of rising global temperature are the central focus in how climate impacts are described. However, observations of extreme weather events (or pulses) increasingly show that the intensity, duration and/or frequency of acute events are also changing, resulting in greater impacts on communities and the environment. Describing how the influence of extreme events may shape water management in the Colorado River Basin in clear terms is critical to sound future planning and efforts to manage risk. Three scenario planning workshops in 2019 and 2020 were held as part of a Colorado River Conversations series, identifying potential impacts from multiple intersecting extreme events. Water managers identified climate-related events of concern in the Colorado River Basin that necessitate greater attention and adaptive responses. To support efforts to include consideration of climate-change-driven extremes in water management and planning, we explore the current state of knowledge at the confluence of long-term climate shifts and extreme weather in the Colorado River Basin related to the events of concern that were identified by scenario planning participants.

The Public Trust Doctrine and California Water Law: National Audubon Society v. Department of Water and Power

University of California College of the Law, San Francisco (UC Law SF) | June 15th, 1982

Conflicting demands on dwindling surface water supplies in California have led to frequent challenges of state decisions to grant diversions of water that impair or destr

Conflicting demands on dwindling surface water supplies in California have led to frequent challenges of state decisions to grant diversions of water that impair or destroy ecological, recreational, or other instream uses of surface waters. This Comment examines the fundamental problems of surface water allocation in California and addresses the possibility of incorporating the public trust doctrine into the current water law system. The Comment then evaluates a recent attempt to apply the public trust doctrine in National Audubon Society v. Department of Water and Power. The Comment concludes by offering an alternative means to public trust protection of California's surface waters.

The Public Trust Doctrine in Natural Resource Law: Effective Judicial Intervention

Berkeley Law Scholarship Repository | January 1st, 1969

Public concern about environmental quality is beginning to be felt in the courtroom. Private citizens, no longer willing to accede to the efforts of administrative agenci

Public concern about environmental quality is beginning to be felt in the courtroom. Private citizens, no longer willing to accede to the efforts of administrative agencies to protect the public interest, have begun to take the initiative themselves. One dramatic result is a proliferation of lawsuits in which citizens, demanding judicial recognition of their rights as members of the public, sue the very governmental agencies which are supposed to be protecting the public interest. While this Article was being written, several dozen such suits were initiated-to enforce air and water pollution laws in states where public agencies have been created for that purpose; to challenge decisions of the Forest Service about the use of public land under its control; to question the Secretary of the Interior's regulation of federal offshore oil leases; and, in a myriad of cases against state and local officials, to examine airport extensions, highway locations, the destruction of parklands,  dredging and filling, oil dumping, and innumerable other governmental decisions dealing with resource use and management.  

The Public Trust Doctrine: Assessing Its Recent Past & Charting Its Future

University of California, Davis (UC Davis) | January 1st, 2012

For over four decades, the public trust doctrine has served as a foundational principle of modern environmental and natural resources law. This issue of the UC Davis Law

For over four decades, the public trust doctrine has served as a foundational principle of modern environmental and natural resources law. This issue of the UC Davis Law Review , and the related, major symposium that drew a standing-room-only audience to King Hall in March 2011, demonstrate the continuing vitality of the public trust. The scholarship featured in these pages continues the UC Davis Law School’s leadership role concerning the doctrine, examines its recent development, and poses key questions regarding its future course. Much has been written about the public trust doctrine, and the articles in this volume explore many of its nuances and implications. Simply stated, however, the doctrine provides that certain natural resources are held by the government in a special status — in “trust” — for current and future generations. Government officials may neither alienate those resources in to private ownership nor permit their injury or destruction. To the contrary, those officials have an affirmative, ongoing duty to safeguard the long-term preservation of those resources for the benefit of the general public.

The Pulse of the Bay 2019: Pollutant Pathways

San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | September 26th, 2019

Pollutants make their way to San Francisco Bay from near and far. Some pollutants come from the other side of the world, such as the mercury that is emitted into the atmo

Pollutants make their way to San Francisco Bay from near and far. Some pollutants come from the other side of the world, such as the mercury that is emitted into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants in Asia, transported across the Pacific Ocean by the wind, and deposited on the surface of the Bay and in the Bay watershed. Some pollutants come from the far corners of the Bay’s watershed, which encompasses 40% of the land surface of California. Mercury used in historic gold mining regions in the Sierra Nevada is still flowing downstream into Central Valley rivers, through the Delta, and into the Bay.  Most pollutants, however, originate from activities closer to home in the small, local watersheds that surround the Bay. Rain that falls onto yards, roofs, parking lots, streets, farms, pastures, and other surfaces in the watersheds picks up pollutants and carries them to the Bay through an intricate network of thousands of miles of storm drain pipes, culverts, and creeks. Most of this stormwater flows to the Bay without any form of pollutant removal.  Another parallel and intricate network of thousands of miles of pipes carries wastewater from homes, business, and industries through sewage collection systems to municipal wastewater treatment plants. These treatment plants are highly effective at removing most pollutants from the wastewater stream, but some are not effectively treated and pass through to the Bay.  Some industrial operations, such as the Bay Area’s petroleum refineries, are large enough to warrant having their own wastewater treatment facilities that remove pollutants so the effluent can be safely discharged into the Bay, reused in plant operations, or applied to land.  Disposal of dredged material at designated sites within the Bay is another activity that introduces pollutants to specific areas in the Bay, but in this case the pollutants are simply transferred from one part of the Bay to another. Much of the pollutant mass in dredged material is also removed from the Bay via disposal in the ocean or beneficial reuse in wetlands and upland sites. This edition of the Pulse of the Bay features articles on the four major pollutant pathways that are the primary focus of Bay water quality managers: municipal wastewater, industrial wastewater, stormwater, and dredging and dredged material disposal.

The Pulse of the Bay 2022: 50 Years after the Clean Water Act

San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | October 13th, 2022

This August an algal bloom of historic proportions blanketed San Francisco Bay. The most concerning aspect of the bloom was the death of thousands of fish across wide are

This August an algal bloom of historic proportions blanketed San Francisco Bay. The most concerning aspect of the bloom was the death of thousands of fish across wide areas of the Bay, including 10,000 yellowfin goby, hundreds of striped bass and white sturgeon, and other species like green sturgeon, bat rays, and sharks. This is the most widespread and deadliest fish kill in the Bay in recent memory.