Estuarine Habitat Use by White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus)

University of California, Davis (UC Davis) | December 1st, 2020

White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus), a species of concern in the San Francisco Estuary, is in relatively low abundance because of a variety of factors. The purpose o

White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus), a species of concern in the San Francisco Estuary, is in relatively low abundance because of a variety of factors. The purpose of our study was to identify the estuarine habitat used by White Sturgeon to aid in the conservation and management of the species locally and across its range. We seasonally sampled sub-adult and adult White Sturgeon in the central estuary using setlines across a habitat gradient representative of three primary structural elements: shallow wetland channel (mean sample depth = 2 m), shallow open-water shoal (mean sample depth = 2 m), and deep open-water channel (mean sample depth = 7 m). We found that the shallow open-water shoal and deep open-water channel habitats were consistently occupied by White Sturgeon in spring, summer, and fall across highly variable water quality conditions, whereas the shallow wetland channel habitat was essentially unoccupied. We conclude that sub-adult and adult White Sturgeon inhabit estuaries in at least spring, summer, and fall and that small, shallow wetland channels are relatively unoccupied.

Estuary-wide Data Repository for Delta Environmental Data to Understand a California Estuary Poster (2017)

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

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) has some of the most pressing water supply and natural resource management issues facing California. The Delta Environmental Da

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) has some of the most pressing water supply and natural resource management issues facing California. The Delta Environmental Data for the Understanding a California Estuary (DEDUCE), a collaborative project building upon the 2014 Environmental Data Summit vision, initiated a forum to integrate disparate data from multiple sources along with legacy data not uploaded to any of the State’s data-sharing systems. DEDUCE collected legacy toxic contaminant data from the Delta according to rigorous business rules, uploaded the data to the expanded estuary-wide data repository, and established design standards to exchange datasets with the California Environmental Data Exchange Network (CEDEN), a contributor to the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Quality Exchange (WQX). This data integration effort liberated accurate, accessible, and synthesized data for scientists and decision-makers as a foundation to inform management actions with the best available science

Estuary-Wide Data Repository for the Delta Environmental Data to Understand a California Estuary

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

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) is the backdrop for some of the most pressing water supply and natural resource management issues facing California. To navigate

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) is the backdrop for some of the most pressing water supply and natural resource management issues facing California. To navigate such matters comprehensively with transparency, and rigor, it is important to ensure broad dissemination of data. An Environmental Data Summit held in 2014 created a new era in information management and knowledge discoveries, and shed light on challenges associated with the use of disparate datasets. The Delta Environmental Data for the Understanding a California Estuary (DEDUCE), a collaborative project, builds upon the Data Summit vision and initiated a forum to integrate disparate data from multiple sources and legacy data that are currently not in any of the State’s data sharing systems. DEDUCE expanded the existing infrastructure to house water quality data from the Delta to address management questions by identifying and collecting high priority data according to rigorous business rules and mapping these data to a central system. This important step of harmonizing the data improves its interoperability and increases the access to and exchange of high-quality environmental data. DEDUCE facilitates the upload, aggregation and display of data in tools such as those created under the auspices of the California Water Quality Monitoring Council, including EcoAtlas and My Water Quality Portals, and CD3: Contaminant Data Display and Download tool for accessing and visualizing data comparable to State standards. DEDUCE achieved collecting and uploading the legacy and toxic contaminant data, and established design standards to exchange future datasets from the initial data storage or database to California Environmental Data Exchange Network (CEDEN). This data integration effort created accurate, accessible, and synthesized data for scientists and decision-makers as a foundation to inform management actions with the best available science.

Evaluating a Laboratory Flume Microbiome as a Window into Natural Riverbed Biogeochemistry

Frontiers in Water (Frontiers) | March 18th, 2021

Riverbeds are hotspots for microbially-mediated reactions that exhibit pronounced variability in space and time. It is challenging to resolve biogeochemical mechanisms i

Riverbeds are hotspots for microbially-mediated reactions that exhibit pronounced variability in space and time. It is challenging to resolve biogeochemical mechanisms in natural riverbeds, as uncontrolled settings complicate data collection and interpretation. To overcome these challenges, laboratory flumes are often used as proxies for natural riverbed systems. Flumes capture spatiotemporal variability and thus allow for controlled investigations of riverbed biogeochemistry. These investigations implicitly rely on the assumption that the flume microbiome is similar to the microbiome of natural riverbeds. However, this assumption has not been tested and it is unknown how the microbiome of a flume compares to natural aquatic settings, including riverbeds. To evaluate the fundamental assumption that a flume hosts a microbiome similar to natural riverbed systems, we used 16s rRNA gene sequencing and publicly available data to compare the sediment microbiome of a single large laboratory flume to a wide variety of natural ecosystems including lake and marine sediments, river, lake, hyporheic, soil, and marine water, and bank and wetland soils. Richness and Shannon diversity metrics, analyses of variance, Bray-Curtis dissimilarity, and analysis of the common microbiomes between flume and river sediment all indicated that the flume microbiome more closely resembled natural riverbed sediments than other ecosystems, supporting the use of flume experiments for investigating natural microbially-mediated biogeochemical processes in riverbeds.

Evaluating historical changes in a mussel bed community in northern California

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | January 14th, 2025

Evaluating the environmental impact of cleaning the North Pacific Garbage Patch

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | May 27th, 2025

Evaluating the hydrologic effects of the 2021–2022 Scott and Shasta irrigation curtailments using remote sensing and streamflow gages

Klamath Tribal Water Quality Consortium | September 11th, 2023

Key Points • Satellite remote sensing data indicated that curtailment orders in 2022 reduced consumptive water use (evapotranspiration, ETa) on agricultural lands i

Key Points • Satellite remote sensing data indicated that curtailment orders in 2022 reduced consumptive water use (evapotranspiration, ETa) on agricultural lands in Shasta Valley, but not Scott Valley. • Streamflow gage data indicate that flows in the Shasta River and some Scott River tributaries (Shackleford and French creeks) were substantially higher in summer 2022 than 2020 or 2021, but similar increases did not occur in the mainstem Scott River. • A likely major reason for the lack of Scott River flow increases was that groundwater use was allowed to continue under Local Cooperative Solutions (LCS) agreements in which water users agreed to reduce pumping by 30% from a prior year baseline. Despite abundant worldwide evidence that reducing consumptive use (i.e., evapotranspiration) is key to increasing environmental water, all LCS cropping and irrigation practices were given equal weight toward the 30% reduction, regardless of the effects on consumptive use. Pumping was not measured and compliance was primarily self-reported, with limited independent verification.

Evaluation and Refinement of Chlorophyll-a Algorithms for High-Biomass Blooms in San Francisco Bay

Remote Sensing (MDPI) | March 21st, 2024

Evaluation of extinction risk for stream fishes within an urban riverscape using population viability analysis

Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems (Wiley) | June 19th, 2024

Evapotranspiration Rate Measurements of Vegetation Typical of Ground-Water Discharge Areas in the Basin and Range Carbonate-Rock Aquifer System, White Pine County, Nevada and Adjacent Areas in Nevada and Utah, September 2005–August 2006

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | July 1st, 2007