San Joaquin River

The San Joaquin Basin hydrologic region is one of California’s largest agricultural regions, producing corn, alfalfa, almonds, pistachios, processing tomatoes, grapes, and other agricultural commodities. While the urban population in this region continues to grow, there are numerous disadvantaged communities, not only small rural communities but also four of the most populous cities in the region.

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DISB Review of the Final EIR/EIS for California WaterFix

Delta Stewardship Council (Delta Council) | June 19th, 2017

Summary

The Delta Reform Act of 2009 directs the Delta Independent Science Board to review environmental impact assessments of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (now California Wat

The Delta Reform Act of 2009 directs the Delta Independent Science Board to review environmental impact assessments of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (now California WaterFix). Here, in our fifth such review, we focus on the adequacy of the scientific information presented in the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR)/Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the California WaterFix by revisiting the six main concerns we raised in our September 2015 review of the Recirculated Draft EIR/Supplemental EIS. We discuss improvements and shortcomings. We also comment on the need to improve impact assessments for scientific evaluation and effective stakeholder engagement. The Final EIR/EIS contains a wealth of detail and considerable insight. This version improves on its predecessors but retains some persistent shortcomings. Improved content on adaptive management is still short on detail about how adaptive management would be implemented under changing and uncertain conditions. Summaries and comparisons, more abundant than before, lack insightful syntheses and graphics that ease comprehension of the vast amount of material presented. Expanded discussion of Delta levees stops short of evaluating interactions with water supply reliability and neglects changing views of earthquake hazards. Long-term effects are better addressed in several ways, but with insufficient attention to uncertainties in defining the No Action Alternative and to the interplay between California groundwater sustainability and Delta water supplies. Other content missing includes evaluation of environmental effects of water use south of the Delta. Evaluation of ecosystem impacts, though extensive, retains gaps on using restoration as mitigation. The completion of our reviews of the Final EIR/EIS and its predecessors prompt us to reflect more broadly on the use and communication of science in the Delta and more specifically on the false trade off between thoroughness and intelligibility that has become common in environmental impact assessments. Overwhelming readers with content that addresses the many scientific issues related to a proposed project and its alternatives, while neglecting the thoughtful presentation and synthesis of insights and performance trade offs among alternatives, diminishes the value of this important document as a comparative guide to the expected environmental effects of the alternatives considered.

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Disentangling Stationary and Dynamic Estuarine Fish Habitat to Inform Conservation: Species-Specific Responses to Physical Habitat and Water Quality in San Francisco Estuary

American Fisheries Society (AFS) | October 12th, 2021

Summary

Estuaries represent critical aquatic habitat that connects surface water distributed between Earth’s landmasses and oceans. They are dynamic transitional ecosystems, wh

Estuaries represent critical aquatic habitat that connects surface water distributed between Earth’s landmasses and oceans. They are dynamic transitional ecosystems, which provide important habitat for fishes and other aquatic organisms. Effective conservation of species inhabiting estuaries requires knowledge of the habitat features that drive their abundance and distribution. We sought to elucidate how stationary (i.e., wetlands, shoals, and channels) and dynamic (i.e., salinity, temperature, turbidity, and chlorophyll concentration) habitat features interact to drive distributions of individual fish species. The Pacific coast of the conterminous United States has over 400 estuaries of various types. The largest (historical surface area) is San Francisco Estuary, California. We conducted extensive field observations of fishes in the central San Francisco Estuary among stationary habitat types (i.e., wetland, shoal, and channel) over a 19-month period encompassing substantial variability in dynamic water quality conditions. Most of the species observed, especially native species of special management interest, were associated with tidal wetland habitat. Few species exhibited associations with water quality conditions driven by seasonal (temperature) or a combination of broad- and fine-scale ecosystem processes (salinity and turbidity). Our study provides (1) an empirical demonstration of how researchers can deal with the complex and dynamic expressions of habitat in estuarine systems to address urgent natural resource problems and (2) a clear demonstration of the urgent need for habitat restoration and its likely outcome in systems such as San Francisco Estuary. Restoration of suitable tidal wetland habitat on the West Coast of the United States is likely to be an effective conservation tool to support estuarine fishes given that over 90% of historical tidal wetland habitat in San Francisco Estuary and 85% of vegetated wetland habitat along the Pacific coast of the United States has been lost due to human modification.

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Dissolved Oxygen in South San Francisco Bay: Variability, Important Processes, and Implications for Understanding Fish Habitat

San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | October 30th, 2018

Summary

Dissolved oxygen (DO) is a key water quality parameter that is related to nutrient enrichment in estuaries around the world. In 2017-2018, the San Francisco Estuary Inst

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Distribution of Lakes in the United States

Scientific American | June 12th, 1880

Summary

There are numerous lacustrine basins to be found in the States bordering the Pacific Ocean. As in other regions of the globe, their distribution is determined by the co

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Ditching Our Innocence: The Clean Water Act in the Age of the Anthropocene

Lewis & Clark College | May 10th, 2018

Summary

Humanity has entered the Age of the Anthropocene, a geologic era marked by the emergence of human activity as the single most dominant influence on Earth’s environment.

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Divergent effects of climate change on future groundwater availability in key mid-latitude aquifers

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | July 24th, 2020

Summary

Groundwater provides critical freshwater supply, particularly in dry regions where surface water availability is limited. Climate change impacts on GWS (groundwater stora

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Diverse stakeholders create collaborative, multilevel basin governance for groundwater sustainability

California Agriculture (UCANR) | March 13th, 2018

Summary

The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) is introducing significant changes in the way groundwater is governed for agricultural use. It requires the format

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Documentation of a Groundwater Flow Model (SJRRPGW) for the San Joaquin River Restoration Program Study Area, California

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | September 23rd, 2014

Summary

To better understand the potential effects of restoration flows on existing drainage problems, anticipated as a result of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program (SJRRP

To better understand the potential effects of restoration flows on existing drainage problems, anticipated as a result of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program (SJRRP), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), developed a groundwater flow model (SJRRPGW) of the SJRRP study area that is within 5 miles of the San Joaquin River and adjacent bypass system from Friant Dam to the Merced River. The primary goal of the SJRRP is to reestablish the natural ecology of the river to a degree that restores salmon and other fish populations. Increased flows in the river, particularly during the spring salmon run, are a key component of the restoration effort. A potential consequence of these increased river flows is the exacerbation of existing irrigation drainage problems along a section of the river between Mendota and the confluence with the Merced River. Historically, this reach typically was underlain by a water table within 10 feet of the land surface, thus requiring careful irrigation management and (or) artificial drainage to maintain crop health. The SJRRPGW is designed to meet the short-term needs of the SJRRP; future versions of the model may incorporate potential enhancements, several of which are identified in this report. The SJRRPGW was constructed using the USGS groundwater flow model MODFLOW and was built on the framework of the USGS Central Valley Hydrologic Model (CVHM) within which the SJRRPGW model domain is embedded. The Farm Process (FMP2) was used to simulate the supply and demand components of irrigated agriculture. The Streamflow-Routing Package (SFR2) was used to simulate the streams and bypasses and their interaction with the aquifer system. The 1,300-square mile study area was subdivided into 0.25-mile by 0.25-mile cells. The sediment texture of the aquifer system, which was used to distribute hydraulic properties by model cell, was refined from that used in the CVHM to better represent the natural heterogeneity of aquifer-system materials within the model domain. In addition, the stream properties were updated from the CVHM to better simulate stream-aquifer interactions, and water-budget subregions were refined to better simulate agricultural water supply and demand. External boundary conditions were derived from the CVHM. The SJRRPGW was calibrated for April 1961 to September 2003 by using groundwater-level observations from 133 wells and streamflow observations from 19 streamgages. The model was calibrated using public-domain parameter estimation software (PEST) in a semi-automated manner. The simulated groundwater-level elevations and trends (including seasonal fluctuations) and surface-water flow magnitudes and trends reasonably matched observed data. The calibrated model is planned to be used to assess the potential effects of restoration flows on agricultural lands and the relative capabilities of proposed SJRRP actions to reduce these effects.

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Domestic well vulnerability to drought duration and unsustainable groundwater management in California's Central Valley

Environmental Research Letters (IOP) | March 18th, 2020

Summary

Millions of Californians access drinking water via domestic wells, which are vulnerable to drought and unsustainable groundwater management. Groundwater overdraft and th

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Draft finding of no significant impact, 2-Gates Fish Protection Demonstration Project.

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) | November 13th, 2009

Summary

The proposed Demonstration Project is a 5-year experiment to validate a new delta smelt behavioral model and study the effects of modifying flows in the Sacramento-San Jo

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San Joaquin River

DISB Review of the Final EIR/EIS for California WaterFix

Disentangling Stationary and Dynamic Estuarine Fish Habitat to Inform Conservation: Species-Specific Responses to Physical Habitat and Water Quality in San Francisco Estuary

Dissolved Oxygen in South San Francisco Bay: Variability, Important Processes, and Implications for Understanding Fish Habitat

Distribution of Lakes in the United States

Ditching Our Innocence: The Clean Water Act in the Age of the Anthropocene

Divergent effects of climate change on future groundwater availability in key mid-latitude aquifers

Diverse stakeholders create collaborative, multilevel basin governance for groundwater sustainability

Documentation of a Groundwater Flow Model (SJRRPGW) for the San Joaquin River Restoration Program Study Area, California

Domestic well vulnerability to drought duration and unsustainable groundwater management in California's Central Valley

Draft finding of no significant impact, 2-Gates Fish Protection Demonstration Project.

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