Donate
PPIC Logo Independent, objective, nonpartisan research

Search Results

Filters Sort by:
blog post

California’s Fish Emergency

By Lori Pottinger

An expert interview with fisheries expert Peter Moyle about what can be done to bring native species back from the brink.

blog post

Water Marketing That Helps Nature

By Ellen Hanak, Jelena Jezdimirovic

Unleashing the potential of water trading could improve conditions California’s struggling rivers and wetlands.

blog post

A Pragmatic Reason to Protect Freshwater Fish

By Ellen Hanak, Jeffrey Mount, Peter Moyle

When species make the endangered species list, we’ve not only failed them, we’ve made it harder to manage water during drought. 

blog post

California’s Environment Needs a Water Budget

By Jeffrey Mount, Brian Gray

Giving the environment its own water budget would help protect species and ecosystems, and foster cooperation over water allocation during droughts.

blog post

Improving Water Allocation During Droughts

By Lori Pottinger

The drought has been a stress test for California’s water system. We talked to Brian Gray about how to improve our water rights system to better prepare for future droughts.

Report

What If California’s Drought Continues?

By Ellen Hanak, Jay Lund, Jeffrey Mount, Peter Moyle ...

California is in the fourth year of a severe, hot drought—the kind that is increasingly likely as the climate warms. Although no sector has been untouched, impacts so far have varied greatly, reflecting different levels of drought preparedness. Urban areas are in the best shape, thanks to sustained investments in diversified water portfolios and conservation. Farmers are more vulnerable, but they are also adapting. The greatest vulnerabilities are in some low-income rural communities where wells are running dry and in California’s wetlands, rivers, and forests, where the state’s iconic biodiversity is under extreme threat. Two to three more years of drought will increase challenges in all areas and require continued—and likely increasingly difficult—adaptations. Emergency programs will need to be significantly expanded to get drinking water to rural residents and to prevent major losses of waterbirds and extinctions of numerous native fish species, including most salmon runs. California also needs to start a longer-term effort to build drought resilience in the most vulnerable areas.

blog post

Farms that Help Wildlife

By Jeffrey Mount, Nathaniel Seavy, John Eadie, Peter Moyle

Some crops that generate low revenue for farmers may have high environmental value, particularly for birds and fish.

blog post

Drought Watch: Saving the Fish

By Jeffrey Mount

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

In a recent California WaterBlog post, Peter Moyle of the University of California, Davis—a frequent collaborator on PPIC projects—highlights an issue not much discussed in the context of this drought: we ignore fish and wildlife at our peril.

blog post

Drought Watch: A Better Way to Manage Water for Fish

By Ellen Hanak, Jeffrey Mount

This is part of a continuing series on the impact of the drought.

As California’s drought wears on, state and federal regulators will be under increasing pressure to loosen environmental standards that protect native fish and other wildlife.

Search results are limited to 100 items. Please use the Refine Results tool if you are not finding what you are looking for.