Watersheds
Watersheds
A watershed is an area of land that drains all the streams and rainfall to a common outlet such as the outflow of a reservoir, mouth of a bay, or any point along a stream channel. Watersheds can be as small as a footprint or large enough to encompass all the land that drains water into rivers that drain into San Francisco Bay, where it enters the Pacific Ocean. The word "watershed" is sometimes used interchangeably with drainage basin or catchment. Watersheds consist of surface water--lakes, streams, reservoirs, and wetlands--and all the underlying groundwater.
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Channel Complexity Synthesis - Trinity River Restoration Program
The Trinity River Restoration Program implements the Department of Interior directive to restore the fisheries of the Trinity River impacted by dam construction and related diversions. The multi-agency program is one of the nation’s largest adaptively managed river restoration efforts and requires periodic assessment to determine its effectiveness in restoring channel dynamics and habitat features...
Sediment Mobility and Riparian Corridor Assessment, Klamath River, CA
The Klamath River is the third largest river flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the continental U.S. The headwaters of the Klamath are located in the Cascade Range in southeastern Oregon and the river flows through northern California to its estuary. Beginning in the 1860s, the flow and water quality of the Klamath started to change due to the building of dams and other water diversions for...
San Diego Hydrogeology
This is the first comprehensive geologic and hydrologic study for the San Diego area. This study will provide the integrated hydrogeologic knowledge necessary in this important and highly visible area of the United States and will serve as a role model for similar coastal settings throughout the world that have modest rainfall and small aquifers. Locally, results will help state and federal...
SGMApy: An open source platform for computing sustainability metrics and visualizing MODFLOW data
Climate change and demographic changes have underscored the need to improve effectiveness of managing valuable water resources for sustainability. In 2014, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) established a framework for sustainable, local groundwater management. SGMA requires groundwater-dependent regions to halt overdraft and bring basins into balanced levels of pumping and recharge...
Climate and Natural Resources Analysis and Planning for California's Northern Coast
The North Coast Resource Partnership (NCRP) is an innovative, stakeholder-driven collaboration among local government, Tribes, watershed groups, and interested partners in the North Coast region of California. The North Coast comprises seven counties, Tribal lands, major watersheds, and a planning area of 19,390 square miles representing 12% of California's landscape. The NCRP integrates long-term...
Determining Water Availability in the Russian River Watershed
The Russian River Watershed covers 1,500 square miles of urban, agricultural and forested lands in northern Sonoma County and southern Mendocino County, California. Communities in the Russian River Watershed (RRW) depend on a combination of Russian River water and groundwater to meet their water-supply demands. Water is used primarily for agricultural irrigation, municipal and private wells supply...
Pathogen Total Maximum Daily Loads Modeling in the Chino Basin
The Santa Ana River in Southern California is the primary water supply for approximately 2 million people. The main constituent of regulatory concern is pathogens that have impaired the use of waters for the beneficial uses of warm freshwater habitat and noncontact water recreation. Pathogen loadings from the tributary watershed flows into lakes and streams leading into the Santa Ana River...
Sedimentation in the Lower Laguna-Mark West Drainage
The Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) and the San Francisco District office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (CORPS) have identified issues associated with sedimentation in the lower Laguna de Santa Rosa and Mark West Creek in Sonoma County. Human activities in the watershed over the last 200 years have accelerated erosion and sediment delivery to the Laguna reducing the water storage capacity...
Scoping Study of Los Angeles River-Arroyo Seco Confluence Park
The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) is considering plans for developing a new park at the confluence of the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco. These plans include removing channel lining and creating a temporary lake using an inflatable rubber dam. Before implementing the plan, a wide array of scientific and engineering issues must be addressed. The U.S. Geological...
Mercury
Mercury is a rare, dense metal, slightly more common than gold in the earth's crust. Mercury occurs in several different forms, the most important of which is methylmercury. Methylmercury is the form most readily incorporated into biological tissues and most toxic to humans. Methylmercury accumulates and biomagnifies in the food chain, reaching highest concentrations in predatory fish such as bass...
Pesticide Occurrence in California – Yolo Bypass Pesticide Analyses
The project is part of an overarching Interagency Ecological Program (IEP)/Department of Water Resources (DWR) study that is focused on understanding the processes by which the Yolo Bypass may provide a fall food web supply for the Cache Slough Complex and downstream regions of the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta. Several studies conducted since 2011 have shown that phytoplankton blooms can be...
Enterococcus Surface Protein as an Indicator of Human Fecal Pollution in the Lower Russian River Basin
Preliminary evaluation of water-quality data collected in the Lower Russian River Basin, Sonoma County, California during an on-going program by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA), indicated that there is considerable variability in bacterial concentrations from reach to reach and from year to year. Furthermore, tributaries that maintained...