Category: Environment – Terrestrial and Riparian/Aquatic

Merced River Flood-MAR Reconnaissance Study Technical Memorandum 1 Plan of Study – Draft

February 6, 2023 No Comments

DWR, in partnership with the Merced Irrigation District (MID), is conducting a preliminary study using flood waters for managed aquifer recharge that can reduce flood risk, increase surface and groundwater supply reliability, and enhance ecosystems in the Merced River Basin. This Merced River Reconnaissance Study (study) is exploring the potential, feasibility, and effectiveness of Flood-MAR concepts, testing theories, and assessing strategies in overcoming barriers and challenges to project planning and implementation. The study will assess current conditions of the Merced River watershed and the vulnerability of these watershed management characteristics to a range of potential climate change futures. The study will also describe the public and private benefits that may be achieved through Flood-MAR strategies and quantify a range of benefits that Flood-MAR could provide in or adjacent to the Merced River watershed.

Multi-Benefit Recharge Project Methodology

February 6, 2023 No Comments

The Multi-Benefit Recharge Project Methodology Guidance Document summarizes considerations and planning that may go into designing, selecting, implementing, and monitoring a multi-benefit recharge project focused on creating suitable shorebird habitat. Projects should be customized to the specific settings and needs of each GSA in order to reach GSP sustainability goals and designed, selected, and implemented to maximize project benefits.

Building Multi-Benefit Recharge Basins

February 6, 2023 No Comments

As California faces an unpredictable water future, policy makers and water managers across the state are seeking solutions to build resilience into our water supply system. Groundwater recharge is an excellent tool to replenish depleted aquifers and bank water for future use. In addition to helping water managers balance their water budget, groundwater recharge also provides an opportunity to create habitat for wildlife. This guide highlights recharge basin management strategies that create wildlife habitat and provide operational benefits to basin managers.

Groundwater Resource Hub

February 2, 2023 No Comments

The purpose of the Groundwater Resource Hub is to help local agencies achieve sustainable groundwater management by providing the science and tools needed to help address nature’s water needs. Over time, the goal is to improve statewide and local understanding of nature’s groundwater needs to reduce uncertainties and therefore enhance sustainable groundwater management.

Groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are plant and animal communities that require groundwater to meet some or all of their water needs. California is home to a diverse range of GDEs including palm oases in the Sonoran Desert, hot springs in the Mojave Desert, seasonal wetlands in the Central Valley, perennial riparian forests along the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and estuaries along the coast and in the Delta. These ecosystems rely on groundwater in California’s semi-arid climate, especially during dry summers and periods of drought. GDEs provide important benefits to California including habitat for animals, water supply, water purification, flood mitigation, erosion control, recreational opportunities and general enjoyment of California’s natural landscape.

Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act

February 2, 2023 No Comments

This guidance provides a systematic and defensible approach to identify GDEs, determine whether potential effects on GDEs are occurring or may occur due to groundwater conditions, and consider GDEs when setting sustainable management criteria. This guidance recommends setting sustainable management criteria based on the conditions necessary to avoid adverse impacts to GDEs and undesirable results in the basin, especially where conservation of species and habitats within GDEs is required by other laws, such as the Endangered Species Act.

This document is designed to inform local decision making, consistent with SGMA’s emphasis on local control. Rather than prescribing approaches or outcomes, this guidance provides a flexible process meant to enable GSAs and stakeholders to make decisions based on the best available science in a manner that promotes transparency and accountability.

Groundwater and Stream Interaction in California’s Central Valley: Insights for Sustainable Groundwater Management

February 2, 2023 No Comments

This report was undertaken to provide technical information on the state of streams and groundwater resources in the Central Valley. The findings of this report were used to support the need for what is now known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The intent was to illustrate the physical inter-relationship between the surface and groundwater resources and the potential impacts that groundwater pumping has had and is currently having on our rivers and streams to demonstrate the need for sustainable groundwater management.

Based on the scale of the data used in this study, the findings contained herein should not be used as a definitive source in determining whether a particular stream or river reach should or should not be considered as an interconnected surface water for SGMA purposes. Further study at a finer scale would be necessary for such a determination.

ICONS: Interconnected Surface Water in California’s Central Valley

February 2, 2023 No Comments

Sustainable groundwater management in California requires an understanding of how groundwater pumping affects surface water features. Groundwater seeps into many river and lake beds in California, providing a steady source of cool clean water. This source of water is crucial for people and nature because it remains steady throughout the year even after the winter rains stop. Under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA),
interconnected surface water (ISW) is defined as “surface water that is hydraulically connected at any point by a continuous saturated zone to the underlying aquifer and the overlying surface water is not completely depleted” (Groundwater Sustainability Plan Emergency Regulations).

SGMA requires special treatment of ISW, but in many parts of the state, ISW is poorly understood. This dataset categories rivers and stream segments on the likelihood that they are ISW, using groundwater depth as a proxy to determine ISW. This data is available to view in an interactive online map at: http://icons.codefornature.org/.

Coyote Valley Conservation Areas Master Plan

December 7, 2022 No Comments

ABOUT COYOTE VALLEY
Coyote Valley is a rural and natural area located at the southern edge of San Jose and is one of the last remaining undeveloped valley floors in the region. Approximately seven miles long and two miles wide, it is defined by the Diablo Range to the east and the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west. The valley is remarkable for its role connecting the ecosystems of the Santa Cruz Mountains with the rest of California, as well as its scenic beauty, rich biodiversity, prime farmland, and unique water resources. The Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority (Authority) and its partners have made protection of Coyote Valley a top priority, and in recent years approximately 1,500 acres of valley-floor land have been permanently protected.

ABOUT THE MASTER PLAN
The Coyote Valley Conservation Areas Master Plan (CVCAMP) will create a roadmap for implementing wildlife linkages, restoring water resources and habitat, supporting climate-smart agriculture, and providing equitable public access on Coyote Valley’s protected lands. The CVCAMP is managed by Authority in close partnership with the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) and the City of San Jose and will be created via an integrated, science-based planning process shaped by robust and inclusive stakeholder and community engagement.

COYOTE VALLEY’S WATER RESOURCES
A key focus element of the CVCAMP will be restoration of the historic Laguna Seca wetlands—the largest freshwater marsh in the region—and rehabilitation of a heavily modified creek system in the Fisher Creek floodplain. Restoration of these water resources will entail retirement of constructed channels, levees, and an earthen dam, and restoring natural landscape processes that will help rebuild the landscape’s capacity to buffer surrounding and downstream areas from increasingly unpredictable flood and stormwater events resulting from climate change. Floodplain restoration will also result in increased climate resilience for the region, enhanced habitat for wildlife, and a suite of other co-benefits like flood-managed aquifer recharge and carbon sequestration.

PROJECT TEAM, SCHEDULE, & FUNDING
In late 2021, the Authority hired a team of technical experts led by the firm SWCA Environmental Consulting & Engineering, Inc. to work on the CVCAMP. The Authority anticipates a three-to-five-year integrated planning effort. The CVCAMP will identify early implementation projects to be constructed within the next five to ten years, as well as develop a larger programmatic vision with a 20-to-30-year time horizon. Planning work is funded by the Authority and POST with generous support from partners, including the California Wildlife Conservation Board, and from the County of Santa Clara Parks & Recreation Department.

Flood-MAR Research and Data Development Plan

September 15, 2022 No Comments

This Flood-MAR Research and Data Development Plan (R&DD Plan) presents the work of the Flood-MAR Research Advisory Committee (RAC), a multidisciplinary group of subject matter experts across 13 research themes. The RAC was tasked to identify the research, data, guidance, and tools necessary to support and expand the implementation of Flood-MAR projects. Well-formulated Flood-MAR projects can benefit Californians and the environment through improved water supply reliability, flood-risk reduction, drought preparedness, aquifer replenishment, ecosystem enhancement, subsidence mitigation, water quality improvement, working landscape preservation and stewardship, climate change adaptation, recreation, and aesthetics

Flood-MAR White Paper

September 15, 2022 No Comments

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) prepared this white paper to explore opportunities to use flood water for managed aquifer recharge (Flood-MAR) because DWR recognizes the need to rehabilitate and modernize water and flood infrastructure in California. Large-scale implementation of Flood-MAR can fundamentally change how flood and groundwater management are integrated by using flood water resulting from, or in anticipation of, rainfall or snowmelt for groundwater recharge on agricultural lands and working landscapes, including but not limited to refuges, floodplains, and flood bypasses.