blog post What It Means to Store Water for the Environment By Sarah Bardeen Jul 26, 2021 In times of drought, California’s ecosystems often suffer. CalTrout Ecosystem Fellow Sarah Null is investigating how to better manage scarce water supplies so that the state can protect vulnerable ecosystems—even as the climate changes.
blog post Operating Dams to Better Manage Big Storms Can Build Resiliency to Climate Extremes By Lori Pottinger Mar 8, 2021 California’s reservoirs are operated using outdated assumptions about climate. Advances in weather forecasting can improve how they manage big storms. We talked to Martin Ralph of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography about this approach.
blog post Smoothing the Bumps in the Road to Ecosystem Restoration By Lori Pottinger Feb 22, 2021 California’s environmental permitting system was developed to prevent bad things from happening to ecosystems, but it often slows efforts to do good things, too. We talked with a group of experts about how to make the process more efficient and effective.
blog post Droughts Aren’t Just About Water Anymore By Lori Pottinger Dec 15, 2020 An increasingly “thirsty atmosphere” in California and the West is influencing drought. We talked to climate scientist Mike Dettinger about this phenomenon.
blog post Making End-of-Life Decisions on Aging Dams By Lori Pottinger Nov 9, 2020 Many of California’s large dams are outliving their functions and even becoming hazardous. We talked to Andrew Rypel of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences about how to address this aging dam population.
blog post Setting Aside Environmental Water for the San Joaquin River By Jeffrey Mount, Ted Grantham, Brian Gray, Ellen Hanak Oct 26, 2020 If we can find a way to restore the health of San Joaquin River while preserving the region’s social and economic vitality, we can do it anywhere in the state.
blog post Commentary: New Approach Needed to Protect Health of California’s Rivers By Ted Grantham, Jeffrey Mount Sep 14, 2020 In the face of the changing climate, biodiversity loss, and continuing conflict over water, California urgently needs to rethink how it manages water for the environment. Restoring seasonal flows to rivers can help.
blog post Video: Making the Most of Water for the Environment By Lori Pottinger Sep 8, 2020 Ted Grantham—the first PPIC CalTrout Ecosystem Fellow and a cooperative extension specialist at UC Berkeley—and a panel of experts discuss a new approach to river management that would restore seasonal components of river flow to sustain ecosystem health.
