Delta Landscapes Executive Summary

San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | December 1st, 2017

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta supplies freshwater to a large portion of California’s cities and agriculture, supports an agricultural economy and culture, and is hom

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta supplies freshwater to a large portion of California’s cities and agriculture, supports an agricultural economy and culture, and is home to native wildlife found nowhere else in the world. This complex region is hampered by many environmental challenges, including an over-allocated water supply, invasive species, water quality problems, novel ecosystems that no longer support desired functions, aging infrastructure, and a complex management structure. Beyond these challenges, sea level rise, other impacts from climate change, and earthquakes pose significant risks to Delta ecosystems, agriculture and water supply. There is general consensus that ecosystem restoration and planning for future resilience needs to take place, within the context of the Delta’s unique culture and economy. Imagining a healthy Delta ecosystem in the future and taking bold, concrete steps toward that future requires an understanding and vision of what that healthy ecosystem could look like. For a place as extensive, unique, and modified as the Delta, critical knowledge can be acquired through the study of the past, investigating the Delta as it existed just prior to the substantial human modifications of the past two centuries. Though the Delta is irrevocably altered, its history is still relevant. Underlying geologic and hydrologic processes still influence the landscape. Native species adapted to live in the historical ecosystems, so restoring functional landscapes that reflect historical patterns can increase the success of restoration efforts.  The Delta Landscapes project investigates the historical ecosystems of the Delta and how they have been modified in the current landscape in order to produce a holistic, aspirational approach to restoration of desired ecological functions. The project goes beyond immediate planning horizons and mandated protection of particular species to explore how restoration of large-scale processes of sediment and water could drive a broad suite of ecological benefits. Restoration or emulation of such processes requires large areas and long time scales. The Delta Landscapes project produced three reports, summarized here, that speak to the past, present, and potential future Delta. The final report, A Delta Renewed, provides a framework for how individual projects planned in the near-term can contribute to a coherent, long-term vision of improving ecosystem function across the Delta. The purpose of this planning framework is to foster more effective and economical restoration of desired functions in a smaller footprint, because each project is contributing to improving a larger system, than could be achieved by projects planned in isolation that each focus on more narrow, varied benefits. The project is purposefully conceived to address only ecological benefits, in the context of a working agricultural landscape with critical water-supply and cultural considerations. The reports can contribute to discussions where social and economic benefits are also evaluated in planning the future Delta landscape. A Delta Renewed User Guide was developed to help different audiences access the information in this report and apply it effectively.  This research was conducted at the request of the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) and the Ecosystem Restoration Program (ERP). 

Delta Narratives: Saving the Historical and Cultural Heritage of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

Delta Protection Commission (DPC) | August 1st, 2015

From August 2014 through July 2015, the Delta Narratives project, on contract to the Delta Protection Commission, addressed two questions. First, in what ways does the hi

From August 2014 through July 2015, the Delta Narratives project, on contract to the Delta Protection Commission, addressed two questions. First, in what ways does the historical experience of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta contribute to an understanding of key themes in regional and American history? Second, how might Delta stories gain wider appreciation within the region, throughout Northern California, and among people in the rest of California and beyond? Scholars on the project team documented ways the history of the Delta illustrates trends in land management and reclamation, technological shifts in transportation and agriculture, the impact of ethnicity and labor specialization on community building, and finally, the shifting visioning of America's promise and fall from grace by artists and writers in response to the intense cultivation of the Delta and the conditions which workers there endured. Their essays testify to the intrinsic value of Delta stories and to the additional perspectives they bring to regional and national history. With these essays in hand, the project team investigated the current infrastructure for the preservation and dissemination of historical and cultural information in the Delta. It created a directory of institutions committed to promoting Delta stories. In order to stimulate conversations between these stakeholders, the team organized two workshops at which the scholars and archivists shared insights and invited commentary and conversation. Subsequently, with the support of the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State University, a conference entitled “More than H2O: Saving the History and Culture of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta” presented findings and discussed strategies with an audience of state and local stakeholders. Delta Narratives culminated with a conference organized around an American Assembly model. The conference generated a list of suggestions for further action regarding the recognition, preservation, and dissemination of Delta stories. High on the list of initiatives were adequate mapping of historically significant locations, an organization that would draw together the many cultural and historical groups in the Delta toward common action, the initiation of annual Delta Days to celebrate the region, and the creation of educational materials including web applications (apps), and a website devoted to the region.

Delta Narratives: Building Communities – Economics & Ethnicity

Delta Protection Commission (DPC) | June 1st, 2015

The theme of this Delta Narrative is Building Communities: Economics and Ethnicity. The essay focuses on the primary zone of the Delta, comprising the “Delta proper”

The theme of this Delta Narrative is Building Communities: Economics and Ethnicity. The essay focuses on the primary zone of the Delta, comprising the “Delta proper” towns. When appropriate, cities and towns outside the primary zone are included in the discussion because they are relevant to the topic at hand. The narrative is divided into three sections. The first section focuses on initial settlement in the Delta, starting with the earliest indigenous inhabitants. It traces the arrival of subsequent immigrant groups and how communities were built around ethnic bonds and the economic needs of an emerging agricultural region. It also covers the early experience of Delta residents, emphasizing themes of human?environment interaction, emerging settlement patterns, and early community development.

Delta Narratives: Literature and Visual Arts of the Delta, 1849-1975

Delta Protection Commission (DPC) | June 1st, 2015

Stories matter. Contemporary neuroscience fairly certainly supports our basic intuition that individual human beings construct their identities out of stories, and wha

Stories matter. Contemporary neuroscience fairly certainly supports our basic intuition that individual human beings construct their identities out of stories, and what is true for individuals is also true, though usually in a more complex way, for cultures. To make the point through an unusually straightforward example, the story of Manifest Destiny had an interesting variant, which can be summed up in the slogan, “rain follows the plow.” The slogan captures an interesting story, one that sees the yeoman farmer heading into the “Great American Desert,” breaking up the sod, planting “civilized” crops, and finding that God shed his grace in rain on the newly opened fields. This variant of a story of God providing for his chosen people did not account for the fact that the western prairies were semi-arid, and, while a series of wet years might support farms, the long term climactic patterns could not sustain the kinds of agriculture known in the much moister east. Still, when those settlers who took advantage of the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909 to settle in the drier uplands of Oklahoma found that they were able to thrive for several years, they believed their story. What was there to disbelieve? A long drought that began in 1930 put most of these farmers on the road not only to destitution, but also to other states. California’s Delta towns would have a different population if this story of providential rainfall hadn’t first moved so many people to Oklahoma. This brief story of a story merely exemplifies a much larger pattern not just of how human beings selectively interpret their lives by way of narrative arcs, but how these narratives shape human action. We try to make sense of the past by telling its story; in the process, we shape our present and our future.

Delta Narratives: Managing the Garden: Agriculture, Reclamation, and Restoration in the Sacramento -San Joaquin Delta

Delta Protection Commission (DPC) | August 5th, 2015

This paper examines land and water use in the Delta from before European contact in 1769 to the beginning of the twenty-first century. The focus lies, first, on the ecolo

This paper examines land and water use in the Delta from before European contact in 1769 to the beginning of the twenty-first century. The focus lies, first, on the ecological transformation of the region during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century from a tidal wetland to an engineered, reclaimed agricultural landscape, as well as on some of the individuals most responsible for that transformation and, second, on more recent environmental conditions in the Delta, especially water quality issues, and on the restoration of wetlands around the Delta’s margins. This paper begins with the Delta’s geological origins, and then discusses how Native Americans used and modified the land, and accounts for the activities of Spanish, Mexican, and early Anglo explorers in the region, as well as the consequences of those activities for indigenous peoples. It then traces the various stages of Delta reclamation from the time of California statehood, beginning with Swamp and Overflowed Lands Act of 1850. It examines the challenges of levee building, which was carried out at first by hand largely by Chinese laborers, and later by mechanized equipment, most notably clamshell dredges. Once reclaimed, Delta mineral and peat soils yielded a wide variety of agricultural products, including potatoes, grains, asparagus, sugar beets, and orchard fruits, among others, which are discussed in some detail. This paper also examines the history of salmon fishing and canning in the Delta before turning more broadly to the twentieth-century federal and state water projects that have affected the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers in different ways and that at various times have both improved and degraded water quality in the Delta. It concludes by coming full circle to late-twentieth century conservation efforts that have aimed to restore parts of the Delta and that have led to the creation of a variety of state, federal, and other protected lands, primarily along the Delta’s fringes, even while the heart of the Delta continues to grapple with seemingly intractable issues of water quality and water conveyance.

Delta Narratives: Stitching a River Culture: Trade, Communication and Transportation to 1960

Delta Protection Commission (DPC) | June 1st, 2015

“Stitching a River Culture” explores three themes in the history of the California Delta: trade, communication, and transportation. Heretofore these three subjects ha

“Stitching a River Culture” explores three themes in the history of the California Delta: trade, communication, and transportation. Heretofore these three subjects have received scant attention, save the history of steamboating and recreational uses of the Delta in recent times. The purpose of the larger narrative is to provide museums, archives, and historical societies with a basic framework that includes these three themes in the context of the larger subjects of agriculture, various kinds of technologies, town building, and reclamation. This narrative begins before Spanish exploration and contact with Native peoples in the last quarter of the eighteenth century and includes the following eras: Spanish, Mexican, Gold Rush, and post?statehood??to around 1960.

Delta Region Integrated Flood Management: Key Considerations and Statewide Implications

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | September 1st, 2012

This Background / Reference Memorandum (BRM) presents highlights from flood-related technical, legislative and funding information regarding the Sacramento-San Joaquin De

This Background / Reference Memorandum (BRM) presents highlights from flood-related technical, legislative and funding information regarding the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta), with emphasis on activities by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR). The BRM is intended to provide historical and existing conditions (year 2011) context for DWR’s use in conveying strategies for future investments in integrated flood management in the Delta under a separate document. The State of California has entrusted DWR as the agency with the responsibility for managing water flow through the Delta and for representing State interests in Delta levees. DWR invests in the Delta levee system to protect clear and identifiable State interests, including but not limited to: • Human life, public health, and property within the Delta; • Water quality and water supply for agriculture, ecosystem, and municipal and industrial water users within the Delta and water users outside of the Delta; • Ecosystem protection and enhancement, including protection and recovery of threatened and endangered species; • Critical infrastructure such as highways, railroads, aqueducts, and pumping plants; • Other infrastructure such as transmission lines (electric & petroleum), shipping channels, and public infrastructure (water and wastewater treatment plants); • Agriculture and recreation; and • Cultural, historical, aesthetic, and other values included in “Delta as a place.” State legislation and modifications to the California Water and Public Resources codes have repeatedly demonstrated the State’s interest in preserving the Delta and the importance of Delta levees. The legislation and modifications to the codes have made strong statements about the importance of the Delta, provided direction for the DWR’s levee programs, and provided funding for flood management activities and environmental stewardship in the Delta. This BRM should be considered a reference document. Due to the large number of existing documents on the Delta and its levees, this BRM provides highlights of important material with references to other documents for more detailed information. This base information should be useful when considering modifications to investment strategies for integrated flood management in the Delta.

Delta Water Facilities Peripheral Canal Preliminary Design Report (Draft Copy)

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | July 31st, 1973

Development of the Lower Sacramento Valley Flood-Control System: Historical Perspective

American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) | July 1st, 2008

Natural physical conditions and the politics of flood management provide the historical context for structural flood control that underlies modern flood hazards in the S

Natural physical conditions and the politics of flood management provide the historical context for structural flood control that underlies modern flood hazards in the Sacramento Valley. The valley is a broad, low plain with backswamp basins that were frequently inundated prior to Anglo-American settlement, continuing until the modern flood-control system was established. Early attempts to emulate the Mississippi River single-channel levee strategy failed repeatedly in the Sacramento Valley due to high flow variability, mining sedimentation, lack of a coordinated levee system, and the inability of the main channels to carry most of the flood flows. Hydraulic mining caused massive sedimentation in major east-side tributaries, such as the Feather, Yuba, Bear, and American Rivers, and in the Sacramento River below the Feather River confluence. This sedimentation led to a flood-control design that relied on levees with narrow cross-channel spacings to promote channel scour and facilitate navigation. Even without sedimentation, floods were not contained within channels, but were largely conveyed through a system of low-land basins. In the early twentieth century, an innovative channel bypass system was adopted that emulates the natural system by routing excess flood waters over a series of weirs and through broad, channelized bypasses that cross the basins. This system has been successful in reducing the extent of frequent inundations of broad lowland areas of the valley. It is in need of maintenance and improvement, however, and cannot eliminate the risk of future flooding in low areas behind levees that are being rapidly developed.

Drought, agricultural adaptation, and sociopolitical collapse in the Maya Lowlands

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) | May 5th, 2015

Paleoclimate records indicate a series of severe droughts was associated with societal collapse of the Classic Maya during the Terminal Classic period (∼800–9

Paleoclimate records indicate a series of severe droughts was associated with societal collapse of the Classic Maya during the Terminal Classic period (∼800–950 C.E.). Evidence for drought largely derives from the drier, less populated northern Maya Lowlands but does not explain more pronounced and earlier societal disruption in the relatively humid southern Maya Lowlands. Here we apply hydrogen and carbon isotope compositions of plant wax lipids in two lake sediment cores to assess changes in water availability and land use in both the northern and southern Maya lowlands. We show that relatively more intense drying occurred in the southern lowlands than in the northern lowlands during the Terminal Classic period, consistent with earlier and more persistent societal decline in the south. Our results also indicate a period of substantial drying in the southern Maya Lowlands from ∼200 C.E. to 500 C.E., during the Terminal Preclassic and Early Classic periods. Plant wax carbon isotope records indicate a decline in C4 plants in both lake catchments during the Early Classic period, interpreted to reflect a shift from extensive agriculture to intensive, water- conservative maize cultivation that was motivated by a drying climate. Our results imply that agricultural adaptations developed in response to earlier droughts were initially successful, but failed under the more severe droughts of the Terminal Classic period.