LandFlex Program’s Guidelines

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | December 8th, 2022

LandFlex is a program that will provide $25 million in block grants to local government agencies to grant to farmers who limit agricultural water use. Local government ag

LandFlex is a program that will provide $25 million in block grants to local government agencies to grant to farmers who limit agricultural water use. Local government agencies will work directly with farmers in critically overdrafted (COD) basins to identify lands that would reduce pumping impacts to nearby drinking water wells. Through financial incentives to farmers LandFlex will provide multiple community benefits such as drinking water well relief, groundwater overdraft prevention, and climate resilience. 

Landsat and Water—Case Studies of the Uses and Benefits of Landsat Imagery in Water Resources

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | March 20th, 2014

Water availability and allocation are issues gaining a great deal of attention, particularly in arid climates. Increases in population growth and recent droughts bring ur

Water availability and allocation are issues gaining a great deal of attention, particularly in arid climates. Increases in population growth and recent droughts bring urgency to measuring and monitoring water use in areas such as the western United States, where the majority of the water has already been allocated.  In the world of water resource management, Landsat has played a key role in providing objective and continuous data for the United States, particularly in the arid west. Water-related benefits of Landsat imagery are also reaped far beyond the United States’ borders in countries such as Chile, Australia, Morocco, Sudan, and Venezuela, which are using Landsat data to make informed decisions regarding natural resource allocation and use. 

Landscape Patterns and Processes of the McCormack-Williamson Tract and Surrounding Area: A framework for restoring a resilient and functional landscape

San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | March 25th, 2013

This report uses a reconstruction of the historical (early 19th century) Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta landscape in concert with contemporary data to elucidate restoration

This report uses a reconstruction of the historical (early 19th century) Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta landscape in concert with contemporary data to elucidate restoration opportunities and constraints at the McCormack-Williamson Tract and within the surrounding Delta setting. Historical ecology encourages a landscape-level perspective of restoration through improved understanding of how physical processes created and maintained habitat mosaics in the recent past. This perception of landscapes can be used to evaluate current conditions and develop future restoration scenarios. We used the recently completed study of the historical Delta landscape (Whipple et al. 2012) to explore opportunities for the McCormack-Williamson Tract (MWT), a 1,645 acre (6.6 km2) tract along the Mokelumne River (Figure 1 and Figure 2). This site exemplifies the need to balance contemporary constraints to restoration (including existing infrastructure and flood protection concerns) with the goals of landscape-scale restoration. To explore some of the strategies and opportunities available to advance the landscape-scale restoration in the MWT area, three general concepts emerged: increasing landscape complexity, connectivity, and resilience. To understand how to interpret and improve these attributes, we developed conceptual models that placed the site within the larger landscapes of the historical Delta, relating local habitat features to regional controlling physical gradients. This aided interpretation of the contemporary physical landscape and allowed identification of opportunities and constraints to both short-term and long-term landscape-scale restoration. The historical record reveals features such as floodplain lakes, forests on natural river levees, and tidal channels in the study area. These and other features could be strategically incorporated into a restoration vision, or an “operational landscape unit” for this part of the Delta (Verhoeven et al. 2008). This type of perspective can help focus restoration targets, including the relative proportion and placement of different habitat types and landscape elements within project design constraints, maximizing the site’s ecological potential. The landscape-scale approach also identifies opportunities to improve ecological connectivity and long-term adaptability to sea level rise and other environmental changes. Some of these opportunities may be critical to the ecological function and resilience of the area, but may not be able to be addressed in the immediate MWT project design. Thus, a central component of translating a historical landscape perspective to site-scale design is envisioning an adaptable restoration process that spans short-term restoration actions that are possible within the site’s bounds, while maintaining a longer-term vision of what is needed at the landscape scale.

Landslide-channel feedbacks amplify channel widening during floods

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | January 24th, 2025

Landslides: Processes, Prediction, and Land Use

American Geophysical Union (AGU) | January 1st, 2006

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Water Resources Monograph Series, Volume 18. Landslides are a constant in shaping our landscape. Whether by

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Water Resources Monograph Series, Volume 18. Landslides are a constant in shaping our landscape. Whether by large episodic, or smaller chronic, mass movements, our mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, and streams bear evidence of change from landslides. Combined with anthropogenic factors, especially the development and settlement of unstable terrain, landslides (as natural processes) have become natural disasters. This book charts our understanding of landslide processes, prediction methods, and related land use issues. How and where do landslides initiate? What are the human and economic consequences? What hazard assessment and prediction methods are available, and how well do they work? How does land use, from timber harvesting and road building to urban and industrial development, affect landslide distribution in time and space? And what is the effect of land use and climate change on landslides? This book responds to such questions with: • Synopses of how various land uses and management activities influence landslide behavior • Analyses of earth surface processes that affect landslide frequency and extent • Examples of prediction techniques and methods of landslide hazard assessment, including scales of application • Discussion of landslide types and related costs and damages Those who study landslides, and those who deal with landslides, from onset to after-effects—including researchers, engineers, land managers, educators, students, and policy makers—will find this work a benchmark reference, now and for years to come.

Langley Area Subbasin Groundwater Sustainability Plan

Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency | January 13th, 2022

The 2014 California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires that medium- and high-priority groundwater basins and subbasins develop Groundwater Sustainabil

The 2014 California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) requires that medium- and high-priority groundwater basins and subbasins develop Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs) that outline how groundwater sustainably will be achieved in 20 years, and then maintained for an additional 30 years. This GSP fulfills that requirement for the Salinas Valley—Langley Area Subbasin (Subbasin), which is designated by the DWR as a medium priority groundwater subbasin. GSP approved by DRW 4/27/23.

Large and inequitable flood risks in Los Angeles, California

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | October 31st, 2022

Flood risks in the United States have historically been underestimated, particularly with respect to human well-being and within low-wealth and marginalized communities.

Flood risks in the United States have historically been underestimated, particularly with respect to human well-being and within low-wealth and marginalized communities. Here, we characterize a fuller range of risks in Los Angeles, California, using a quantitative framework that intersects flood hazards from rainfall, streamflow and storm tides with measures of exposure and vulnerability including ethnicity, race and socioeconomic disadvantage. We find that between 197,000 and 874,000 people (median 425,000) and between US$36 billion and US$108 billion in property (median US$56 billion) are exposed to flooding greater than 30 cm within the 100-year flood zone, risk levels far above federally defined floodplains and similar to the most damaging hurricanes in US history. These risks are disproportionately higher for non-Hispanic Black and disadvantaged populations, burdening communities that may have greater challenges recovering and reinforcing socioeconomic inequities. Our framework creates opportunities for transparently and equitably reducing flood risks in urban areas.

Large closed-basin lakes sustainably supplied phosphate during the origins of life

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) | February 19th, 2025

The origin of life on Earth required a supply of phosphorus (P) for the synthesis of universal biomolecules. Closed lakes may have accumulated high P concentrations on ea

The origin of life on Earth required a supply of phosphorus (P) for the synthesis of universal biomolecules. Closed lakes may have accumulated high P concentrations on early Earth. However, it is not clear whether prebiotic P uptake in such settings would then have been sustainable. We show that large closed-basin lakes can combine high P concentrations at steady state with extremely high rates of biological productivity. Our case study is Mono Lake in California, which has close to 1 millimolar dissolved P at steady state despite extremely high rates of biological productivity, in contrast to smaller closed basins where life is scarce. Hence, large closed-basin lakes offer an environment where high rates of prebiotic P productivity can plausibly coexist with high steady-state P concentrations. Such lakes should have readily formed on the heavily cratered and volcanically active surface of early Earth.

Large contribution from anthropogenic warming to an emerging North American megadrought

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) | April 17th, 2020

Severe and persistent 21st-century drought in southwestern North America (SWNA) motivates comparisons to medieval megadroughts and questions about the role of anthropogen

Severe and persistent 21st-century drought in southwestern North America (SWNA) motivates comparisons to medieval megadroughts and questions about the role of anthropogenic climate change. We use hydrological modeling and new 1200-year tree-ring reconstructions of summer soil moisture to demonstrate that the 2000–2018 SWNA drought was the second driest 19-year period since 800 CE, exceeded only by a late-1500s megadrought. The megadrought-like trajectory of 2000–2018 soil moisture was driven by natural variability superimposed on drying due to anthropogenic warming. Anthropogenic trends in temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation estimated from 31 climate models account for 47% (model interquartiles of 35 to 105%) of the 2000–2018 drought severity, pushing an otherwise moderate drought onto a trajectory comparable to the worst SWNA megadroughts since 800 CE.

Large global-scale vegetation sensitivity to daily rainfall variability

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | December 11th, 2024

Click here for a plain language summary from NASA.

Click here for a plain language summary from NASA.