Publications
For more than a century, USGS scientists have conducted research in California’s Bay-Delta region. Informing natural-resource management decisions on the region’s issues, this research has been published in thousands of documents, some highlighted below.
Filter Total Items: 308
Climate change and the Delta
Anthropogenic climate change amounts to a rapidly approaching, “new” stressor in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta system. In response to California’s extreme natural hydroclimatic variability, complex water-management systems have been developed, even as the Delta’s natural ecosystems have been largely devastated. Climate change is projected to challenge these management and ecological systems in
Authors
Michael D. Dettinger, Jamie Anderson, Michael L. Anderson, Larry R. Brown, Daniel Cayan, Edwin P. Maurer
Estuary-ocean connectivity: Fast physics, slow biology
Estuaries are connected to both land and ocean so their physical, chemical, and biological dynamics are influenced by climate patterns over watersheds and ocean basins. We explored climate-driven oceanic variability as a source of estuarine variability by comparing monthly time series of temperature and chlorophyll-a inside San Francisco Bay with those in adjacent shelf waters of the California Cu
Authors
Mélanie Raimonet, James E. Cloern
Food webs of the Delta, Suisun Bay and Suisun Marsh: an update on current understanding and possibilities for management
This paper reviews and highlights recent research findings on foodweb processes since an earlier review by Kimmerer et al. (2008). We conduct this review within a conceptual framework of the Delta-Suisun food web, which includes both temporal and spatial components. The temporal component is based on knowledge that the landscape has changed markedly from historical conditions. The spatial componen
Authors
Larry R. Brown, Wim J. Kimmerer, Louise Conrad, Sarah Lesmeister, Anke Mueller-Solger
Characterizing changes in streamflow and sediment supply in the Sacramento River Basin, California, using hydrological simulation program—FORTRAN (HSPF)
A daily watershed model of the Sacramento River Basin of northern California was developed to simulate streamflow and suspended sediment transport to the San Francisco Bay-Delta. To compensate for sparse data, a unique combination of model inputs was developed, including meteorological variables, potential evapotranspiration, and parameters defining hydraulic geometry. A slight decreasing trend of
Authors
Michelle A. Stern, Lorraine E. Flint, Justin Toby Minear, Alan L. Flint, Scott Wright
A century of landscape disturbance and urbanization of the San Francisco Bay region affects the present-day genetic diversity of the California Ridgway’s rail (Rallus obsoletus obsoletus)
Fragmentation and loss of natural habitat have important consequences for wild populations and can negatively affect long-term viability and resilience to environmental change. Salt marsh obligate species, such as those that occupy the San Francisco Bay Estuary in western North America, occupy already impaired habitats as result of human development and modifications and are highly susceptible to
Authors
Dustin A. Wood, Thuy-Vy D. Bui, Cory T. Overton, Amy G. Vandergast, Michael L. Casazza, Joshua M. Hull, John Y. Takekawa
Near-field receiving water monitoring of trace metals and a benthic community near the Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control Plant in south San Francisco Bay, California; 2015
Trace-metal concentrations in sediment and in the clam Macoma petalum (formerly reported as Macoma balthica), clam reproductive activity, and benthic macroinvertebrate community structure were investigated in a mudflat 1 kilometer south of the discharge of the Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control Plant (PARWQCP) in South San Francisco Bay, California. This report includes data collected by U.S
Authors
Daniel J. Cain, Janet K. Thompson, Jeffrey Crauder, Francis Parchaso, A. Robin Stewart, Matthew A. Turner, Michelle I. Hornberger, Samuel N. Luoma
Evaluation of a floating fish guidance structure at a hydrodynamically complex river junction in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, California, USA
Survival of out-migrating juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River delta, California, USA, varies by migration route. Survival of salmonids that enter the interior and southern Delta can be as low as half that of salmonids that remain in the main-stem Sacramento River. Reducing entrainment into the higher-mortality routes, such as Georgiana Slough, sho
Authors
Jason G. Romine, Russell W. Perry, Adam C. Pope, Paul Stumpner, Theresa L. Liedtke, Kevin K. Kumagai, Ryan L. Reeves
Island characteristics within wetlands influence waterbird nest success and abundance
Coastal waterbird populations are threatened by habitat loss and degradation from urban and agricultural development and forecasted sea level rise associated with climate change. Remaining wetlands often must be managed to ensure that waterbird habitat needs, and other ecosystem functions, are met. For many waterbirds, the availability of island nesting habitat is important for conserving breeding
Authors
C. Alex Hartman, Joshua T. Ackerman, Mark P. Herzog
Delta smelt: Life history and decline of a once abundant species in the San Francisco Estuary
This paper reviews what has been learned about Delta Smelt and its status since the publication of The State of Bay-Delta Science, 2008 (Healey et al. 2008). The Delta Smelt is endemic to the upper San Francisco Estuary. Much of its historic habitat is no longer available and remaining habitat is increasingly unable to sustain the population. As a listed species living in the central node of Calif
Authors
Peter B. Moyle, Larry R. Brown, John R Durand, James A. Hobbs
Anadromous salmonids in the Delta: New science 2006–2016
As juvenile salmon enter the Sacramento–SanJoaquin River Delta (“the Delta”) they disperse among its complex channel network where they are subject to channel-specific processes that affect their rate of migration, vulnerability to predation, feeding success, growth rates, and ultimately, survival. In the decades before 2006, tools available to quantify growth, dispersal, and survival of juven
Authors
Russell W. Perry, Rebecca A. Buchanan, Patricia L. Brandes, Jon R. Burau, Joshua A Israel
Mercury risk to avian piscivores across western United States and Canada
The widespread distribution of mercury (Hg) threatens wildlife health, particularly piscivorous birds. Western North America is a diverse region that provides critical habitat to many piscivorous bird species, and also has a well-documented history of mercury contamination from legacy mining and atmospheric deposition. The diversity of landscapes in the west limits the distribution of avian pisciv
Authors
Allyson K. Jackson, David C. Evers, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Joshua T. Ackerman, James J. Willacker, John E. Elliott, Jesse M. Lepak, Stacy S. Vander Pol, Colleen E. Bryan
Effects of salt pond restoration on benthic flux: Sediment as a source of nutrients to the water column
Understanding nutrient flux between the benthos and the overlying water (benthic flux) is critical to restoration of water quality and biological resources because it can represent a major source of nutrients to the water column. Extensive water management commenced in the San Francisco Bay, Beginning around 1850, San Francisco Bay wetlands were converted to salt ponds and mined extensively for mo
Authors
Brent R. Topping, James S. Kuwabara, James L. Carter, Krista K. Garrettt, Eric Mruz, Sarah Piotter, John Y. Takekawa