Hydrology and Hydrodynamics on the Sacramento River Near the Fremont Weir, California—Implications for Juvenile Salmon Entrainment Estimates

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | November 9th, 2018

Estimates of fish entrainment on the Sacramento River near the Fremont Weir are a critical component in determining the feasibility and design of a proposed notch in the

Estimates of fish entrainment on the Sacramento River near the Fremont Weir are a critical component in determining the feasibility and design of a proposed notch in the weir to increase access to the Yolo Bypass, a seasonal floodplain of the Sacramento River. Detailed hydrodynamic and velocity measurements were made at a river bend near the Fremont Weir in the winter and spring of 2016 to examine backwater conditions and estimate the hydraulic entrainment zone, a zone where fish would be predicted to be entrained into the notch. Secondary circulation near the river bend was shown to shift the velocity and discharge distributions toward the outside of the bend. Variability in the stage-discharge relation was shown to be the biggest source of uncertainty in determining the location of the hydraulic entrainment zone. Outflow from the Sutter Bypass and high flow on the Feather River resulted in backwater conditions near the Fremont Weir about 25 percent of the time over the 27-year period from April 1990–April 2017. Velocity measurements used to estimate the critical streakline position (the outer edge of the hydraulic entrainment zone) were not made over a sufficient range of conditions to explicitly quantify the variability in the location of the critical streakline. The variability in the critical streakline position was therefore represented stochastically with a random effects model. The estimated position of the critical streakline and the random effects model are input parameters used in a simulation designed to estimate fish entrainment over a 15-year period. The estimates of the critical streakline and likely fish entrainment could be much improved with velocity measurements over a broader range of stage and discharge conditions. 

Hydrology and Water Quality Analysis Report for the Amendments to the Cemex Eliot Quarry SMP-23 Reclamation Plan

Alameda County Community Development Agency | December 6th, 2016

The proposed Reclamation Plan Amendment at the CEMEX Eliot Quarry facility in Pleasanton, California has been evaluated from the perspective of the criteria in Appendix G

The proposed Reclamation Plan Amendment at the CEMEX Eliot Quarry facility in Pleasanton, California has been evaluated from the perspective of the criteria in Appendix G of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the requirements of Section 3706 of the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act (SMARA), for potential impacts on hydrology and water quality.  Click here for the California CEQA Eliot Quarry page

Hydrology of the San Bernardino and Eastern San Gabriel Mountains, California

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | July 15th, 1954

Man's successful occupancy and development of the arid and semiarid parts of the earth will always be a planned and slow process. Planning is necessary be- cause the amou

Man's successful occupancy and development of the arid and semiarid parts of the earth will always be a planned and slow process. Planning is necessary be- cause the amount and distribution of the precipitation will generally not support the food crops to which he is accustomed. To provide the soil with enough mois- ture for crops, supplemental waters must be obtained from ground-water sources, distant surface streams, or from storage in mountain reservoirs. The planning, financing, and development of these supplemental sources require the united effort of many individuals, and as the population increases, water supplies that were once adequate may become insufficient. Thus, man is continually faced with the problem of obtaining enough water of high enough quality to meet his in- creasing demands. The problem requires an under- standing of the natural laws of occurrence and distribution of the water in the air, on the earth's surface, and underground. All life is dependent on these sources of water.

Hydrology of the Valley-Fill and Carbonate-Rock Reservoir, Pahrump Valley, Nevada-California

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | July 1st, 1967

This is the second appraisal of the water supply of Pahrump Valley, made 15 years after the first cooperative study. In the first report the average recharge was estima

This is the second appraisal of the water supply of Pahrump Valley, made 15 years after the first cooperative study. In the first report the average recharge was estimated to be 23,000 acre-feet per year, only 1,000 acre-feet r^ore than the estimate made in this report. All this recharge was considered to be available for development. Because of the difficulty in salvaging the subsurface outflow from the deep carbonate-rock reservoil', this report concludes that the perennial yield may be only 12,000 acre-feet. In 1875, Bennetts and Manse Springs reportedly discharged a total of nearly 10,000 acre-feet of water from the valley-fill reservoir. After the construction of several flowing wells in 1910, the spring discharge began to decline. In the mid-1940's many irrigation wells were drilled, and large-capacity pumps were installed. During the 4-year period of this study (1959-62), the net pumping draft averaged about 25,000 acre-feet per year, or about twice the estimated yield. In 1962 Bennetts Spring was dry, and the discharge from Marse Spring was only 1,400 acre-feet. During the period February 1959-February 1962, pumping caused an estimated storage depletion of 45,000 acre-feet, or 15,000 acre-feet per year. If the overdraft is maintained, depletion of stored water will continue and pumping costs will increase. Water levels in the vicinity of the Pahrump, Manse, and Fowler Ranches declined more than 10 feet in response to the pumping during this period, and they can be expected to continue to decline at the projected rate of more than 3 feet per year. The chemical quality of the pumped water has been satisfactory for irrigation and domestic use. Recycling of water pumped for irrigation, however, could result in deterioration of the water quality with time.

Hydrology of the Yucaipa Groundwater Subbasin: Characterization and Integrated Numerical Model, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, California

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | January 26th, 2022

Water management in the Santa Ana River watershed in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties in southern California is a complex task with various water purveyors navigatin

Water management in the Santa Ana River watershed in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties in southern California is a complex task with various water purveyors navigating geographic, geologic, hydrologic, and political challenges to provide a reliable water supply to stakeholders. As the population has increased throughout southern California, so has the demand for water. The Yucaipa groundwater subbasin (hereafter referred to as “Yucaipa subbasin”), one of nine groundwater subbasins in what the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) refers to as the Upper Santa Ana Valley groundwater basin (California Department of Water Resources, 2016; the DWR naming convention is used within this report), is no exception; steady population growth since the 1940s and changes in water use has forced local water purveyors to regularly adapt their water infrastructure to meet demand. Groundwater has historically been the dominant source of water in the Yucaipa subbasin although recently, imported water via the California State Water Project has augmented the total water supply. Despite the influx of imported water, overall demand for groundwater continues to rise, and there is concern by local water managers that groundwater levels may adversely impact water supply and (or) decline to a point where it will be uneconomical to produce water, severely limiting the ability of local agencies to meet water-supply demand. To better understand the hydrogeology and water resources in the Yucaipa subbasin, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District initiated a cooperative study to understand the hydrogeologic system of the Yucaipa subbasin and in the encompassing Yucaipa Valley watershed (YVW). A three-dimensional hydrogeologic framework model was constructed to quantify the structure and extent of hydrogeologic units. Historical and present-day groundwater conditions were characterized to evaluate the groundwater-flow system. Lastly, the Yucaipa Integrated Hydrological Model (YIHM) was developed to simulate the integrated surface-water and groundwater systems, including natural and anthropogenic (that is, human influenced) recharge and discharge throughout the study area from 1947 to 2014. The Yucaipa subbasin is an inland groundwater basin located about 12 miles (mi) southeast of the City of San Bernardino and about 75 mi east of Los Angeles, California. The subbasin encompasses about 39 square miles (mi2), including the City of Yucaipa. The geographic extent of the Yucaipa subbasin was established by the California Department of Water Resources, who defined the boundaries of the subbasin based on hydrogeologic transitions between crystalline rock and basin-fill sediments, active fault strands, surface-water drainage divides, and a portion of an adjudicated groundwater management boundary. Two groundwater subbasins of the Upper Santa Ana Valley groundwater basin are adjacent to the Yucaipa subbasin, the San Bernardino groundwater subbasin to the west and the San Timoteo groundwater subbasin to the south. The Yucaipa subbasin is encompassed by the YVW, which is in turn comprised of three sub-watersheds that represent surface-water flow across and within the Yucaipa subbasin. Although the Yucaipa subbasin is the specific area of interest for this study, the entire YVW was considered for the purposes of characterizing the hydrogeology of the Yucaipa subbasin and for development of the YIHM. The purposes of this report are to (1) describe the hydrologic and hydrogeologic settings of the Yucaipa subbasin and aquifer system, (2) describe the construction and calibration of the fully coupled groundwater and surface-water flow model for the Yucaipa subbasin and the encompassing YVW, referred to as the YIHM, and (3) present numerical results, including water budgets and hydraulic heads, and the effect of pumping and climate stresses (precipitation and temperature) on water-budget components. This document is an executive summary. Click here for an index and links to the full report and model.

Hydrology, Ecology, and Fishes of the Klamath River Basin (2008)

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) | January 1st, 2008

The Klamath River basin, which spans parts of southern Oregon and northern California, has been the focus of a prominent conflict over competing uses for water. Manag

The Klamath River basin, which spans parts of southern Oregon and northern California, has been the focus of a prominent conflict over competing uses for water. Management actions to protect threatened and endangered fish species in the basin have left less water available for irrigation in dry years and heightened tensions among farmers and other stakeholders including commercial fishermen, Native Americans, conservationists, hunters, anglers, and hydropower producers. This National Research Council report assesses two recent studies that evaluate various aspects of flows in the Klamath basin: (1) the Instream Flow Phase II study (IFS), conducted by Utah State University, and (2) the Natural Flow of the Upper Klamath Basin study (NFS), conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR). The report concludes that both studies offer important new information but do not provide enough information for detailed management of flows in the Klamath River, and it offers many suggestions for improving the studies. The report recommends that a comprehensive analysis of the many individual studies of the Klamath river basin be conducted so that a big picture perspective of the entire basin and research and management needs can emerge. Key Messages If these conclusions were borne out by studies incorporating experimental flows and monitored responses, managers would be able to have greater confidence that decisions to increase flows would have a beneficial effect on anadromous fishes in the lower river The Instream Flow Study Phase II did not include important water-quality attributes, such as dissolved oxygen levels, nutrient loadings, contaminants, and sediment concentrations, although each has important implications for the vitality of the fish populations of the Klamath River. The Natural Flow Study and the Instream Flow Study Phase II were major science and engineering investigations, but the linkage of one to the other was only partially achieved. The Natural Flow Study was seriously compromised by several fundamental issues, including its choice of a basic approach for understanding natural flows, choices of the models for calculations, and serious omissions of factors likely to influence river flows at the Iron Gate Dam gauge site. The basin and its biota have changed so much in the past century that the implications for the fishes of restoring natural flows are not clear. The committee concluded that the Natural Flow Study includes calculated flows that are at best first approximations to useful estimates of such flows. The committee found important shortcomings in the Instream Flow Study Phase II and its use of various models and data. Two major shortcomings use of monthly data and lack of tributary analyses are so severe that that they should be addressed before decision makers can use the outputs of the study to establish precise flow regimes with confidence. The most important outcome of the Instream Flow Study was that it indicated that increases in existing flows downstream from Iron Gate Dam probably would benefit fish populations through improved physical habitat associated with more water and through reduced water temperatures. There was a lack of a thorough assessment of the relationship between flow-data time series and the behavior of different species and life stages and the population dynamics of coho and Chinook salmon When the science needs for the basin are better characterized, the individual studies necessary to create a sound science-based body of knowledge for decision makers and managers will be more easily identified. current flow regime. These are improvements in flow because they include intra- and inter-annual variations and probably will enhance Chinook salmon growth and young-of-the-year production. is not possible to know how well the recommendations apply to any one species or to all the species as a whole. Indeed, most of the information was from Chinook salmon, which suggests that confidence in its applicability to that species would be greater than to other species. of the representativeness of the reaches used for detailed study, and the statistical approach to analyze the calculated set of instream flows did not use normalized data and did not have provisions for identifying serial autocorrelations.

Hydrology, Hydraulics, and Water Management Technical Report

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) | December 15th, 2014

This Technical Report describes pertinent hydrologic and hydraulic condition and water management operations for Shasta Lake, the Sacramento River, the Delta, and the CVP

This Technical Report describes pertinent hydrologic and hydraulic condition and water management operations for Shasta Lake, the Sacramento River, the Delta, and the CVP/State Water Project (SWP) service areas, under existing conditions, the No-Action Alternative, and the Action Alternatives for the SLWRI.

Hydrometeorological characteristics of rain-on-snow events associated with atmospheric rivers

American Geophysical Union (AGU) | March 29th, 2016

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow, elongated, synoptic corridors of enhanced water vapor transport that play an important role in regional weather/hydrology. Rain-on-s

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are narrow, elongated, synoptic corridors of enhanced water vapor transport that play an important role in regional weather/hydrology. Rain-on-snow (ROS) events during ARs present enhanced flood risks due to the combined effects of rainfall and snowmelt. Focusing onCalifornia’s Sierra Nevada, the study identifies ROS occurrences and their connection with ARs during the 1998–2014 winters. AR conditions, which occur during 17% of all precipitation events, are associated with 50% of ROS events (25 of 50). Composite analysis shows that compared to ARs without ROS, ARs with ROS areon average warmer by ~2 K, with snow water equivalent loss of ~0.7 cm/d (providing 20% of the combined water available for runoff) and ~50% larger streamflow/precipitation ratios. Atmospheric Infrared Sounderretrievals reveal distinct offshore characteristics of the two types of ARs. The results highlight the potential value of observing these events for snow, rain, and flood prediction.

Hydropower capacity factors trending down in the United States

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | June 27th, 2024

Hyper-Salinity Toxicity Thresholds for Nine California Ocean Plan Toxicity Test Protocols

California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) | July 1st, 2012

A growing number of coastal cities in California are exploring the potential for ocean desalination as a means to augment freshwater supplies. There are currently a numbe

A growing number of coastal cities in California are exploring the potential for ocean desalination as a means to augment freshwater supplies. There are currently a number of desalination facilities proposed or operating in California. The process of desalination most commonly utilizes reverse osmosis (RO) to remove salts from groundwater, reclaimed water, and seawater. This process results in production of hypersaline reject brine. This reject brine may be discharged into the marine environment, sometimes in combination with discharge from a sewage treatment plant or power plant effluent. Typical RO reject brine produced using 100% seawater can have approximately twice the original salt content of seawater. In order to ensure that brine discharges do not pose risk to coastal receiving waters, it is anticipated that desalination plants will be required to monitor effluent toxicity. Monitoring requirements will likely include testing for effluent toxicity using some combination of the short-term chronic toxicity test protocols listed in the 2009 California Ocean Plan (SWRCB, 2009). While the tests listed in the Ocean Plan have been the subject of ongoing research, no comprehensive studies of the effects of hyper-salinity have been conducted with all seven toxicity test organisms (nine protocols when including sand dollar and urchin fertilization endpoints). The results from these tests will allow determination of the toxicity of hypersaline brine in the absence of any additional toxic constituents that may be produced during the desalination process. These results provide resource managers with background information to facilitate interpretation of toxicity test results from desalination plant effluent testing and permitting of desalination facilities. The results will also be used in the development of an amendment to the California Ocean Plan that addresses impacts to marine life from intakes and discharges from desalination facilities.