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Conservation Strategy for Restoration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley Regions

CALFED | May 15th, 2014

Summary

The Conservation Strategy describes ERP goals and conservation priorities for Stage 2 of the CALFED Bay-Delta Program (CALFED) and was developed by the Department of Fish

The Conservation Strategy describes ERP goals and conservation priorities for Stage 2 of the CALFED Bay-Delta Program (CALFED) and was developed by the Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) in coordination with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries), collectively known as the ERP Implementing Agencies. This document serves as the conceptual framework that will guide future ERP environmental restoration, including development of conservation priorities and processes to identify and implement restoration opportunities, and monitoring to guide and improve its success in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta), and the Sacramento Valley and the San Joaquin Valley regions. This Conservation Strategy builds on information presented in the Ecosystem Restoration Program Plan (ERPP) (CALFED 2000a), the Multi-species Conservation Strategy (MSCS) (CALFED 2000d), ERP Milestones Reports (CALFED 2001b) and Annual Reports (DFG 2011b), the best available science on current ecological conditions, related programs and planning efforts, and input from stakeholders and the general public. There are many different kinds of conservation planning currently underway for the Delta, Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley regions and restoration is very much a shared vision between and among the agencies, various resource users, and the public. ERP Implementing Agencies will be using this ERP Stage 2 Conservation Strategy as a guide through the end of Stage 2 (2030). It provides a comprehensive ecosystem restoration strategy for ERP efforts in the Focus Area (Focus Area) (Figure 1), allowing flexibility in adapting responses accordingly to new scientific findings, changed circumstances and new or modified future conservation priorities. This Conservation Strategy will serve as a guide to identify programmatic-level types and locations of potential restoration actions based on conservation priorities. It is not a prescription for restoration actions at any specific site. Within this strategy is a compilation of conservation priorities, articulated from lessons learned during Stage 1, which may be used to meet ERP goals. All agencies, groups, or individuals interested in resource conservation and management within the Focus Area are encouraged to use this document as a guide to help coordinate activities to address ERP conservation priorities.

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CVFPP Conservation Strategy Appendix I. Floodplain Restoration Opportunity Analysis

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | July 14th, 2016

Summary

As part of the Conservation Strategy for the 2017 Central Valley Flood Protection Plan (CVFPP), a continuation of the Floodplain Restoration Opportunity Analysis (FROA) (

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Dam removal and anadromous salmonid (Oncorhynchus spp.) conservation in California

Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries (Springer) | June 4th, 2014

Summary

Dam removal is often proposed for restoration of anadromous salmonid populations, which are in serious decline in California. However, the benefits of dam removal vary du

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Delta Landscapes Executive Summary

San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | December 1st, 2017

Summary

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta supplies freshwater to a large portion of California’s cities and agriculture, supports an agricultural economy and culture, and is hom

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta supplies freshwater to a large portion of California’s cities and agriculture, supports an agricultural economy and culture, and is home to native wildlife found nowhere else in the world. This complex region is hampered by many environmental challenges, including an over-allocated water supply, invasive species, water quality problems, novel ecosystems that no longer support desired functions, aging infrastructure, and a complex management structure. Beyond these challenges, sea level rise, other impacts from climate change, and earthquakes pose significant risks to Delta ecosystems, agriculture and water supply. There is general consensus that ecosystem restoration and planning for future resilience needs to take place, within the context of the Delta’s unique culture and economy. Imagining a healthy Delta ecosystem in the future and taking bold, concrete steps toward that future requires an understanding and vision of what that healthy ecosystem could look like. For a place as extensive, unique, and modified as the Delta, critical knowledge can be acquired through the study of the past, investigating the Delta as it existed just prior to the substantial human modifications of the past two centuries. Though the Delta is irrevocably altered, its history is still relevant. Underlying geologic and hydrologic processes still influence the landscape. Native species adapted to live in the historical ecosystems, so restoring functional landscapes that reflect historical patterns can increase the success of restoration efforts. The Delta Landscapes project investigates the historical ecosystems of the Delta and how they have been modified in the current landscape in order to produce a holistic, aspirational approach to restoration of desired ecological functions. The project goes beyond immediate planning horizons and mandated protection of particular species to explore how restoration of large-scale processes of sediment and water could drive a broad suite of ecological benefits. Restoration or emulation of such processes requires large areas and long time scales. The Delta Landscapes project produced three reports, summarized here, that speak to the past, present, and potential future Delta. The final report, A Delta Renewed, provides a framework for how individual projects planned in the near-term can contribute to a coherent, long-term vision of improving ecosystem function across the Delta. The purpose of this planning framework is to foster more effective and economical restoration of desired functions in a smaller footprint, because each project is contributing to improving a larger system, than could be achieved by projects planned in isolation that each focus on more narrow, varied benefits. The project is purposefully conceived to address only ecological benefits, in the context of a working agricultural landscape with critical water-supply and cultural considerations. The reports can contribute to discussions where social and economic benefits are also evaluated in planning the future Delta landscape. A Delta Renewed User Guide was developed to help different audiences access the information in this report and apply it effectively. This research was conducted at the request of the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) and the Ecosystem Restoration Program (ERP).

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Delta Landscapes: A Delta Renewed User Guide

San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | December 1st, 2017

Summary

A Delta Renewed User Guide aims to increase the accessibility of the technical findings in A Delta Renewed for easier application to restoration and conservation efforts

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Dispersion and Stratification Dynamics in the Upper Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel

University of California, Davis (UC Davis) | December 1st, 2021

Summary

Hydrodynamics control the movement of water and material within and among habitats, where time-scales of mixing can exert bottom-up regulatory effects on aquatic ecosyste

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Documentation of a Groundwater Flow Model (SJRRPGW) for the San Joaquin River Restoration Program Study Area, California

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | September 23rd, 2014

Summary

To better understand the potential effects of restoration flows on existing drainage problems, anticipated as a result of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program (SJRRP

To better understand the potential effects of restoration flows on existing drainage problems, anticipated as a result of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program (SJRRP), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), developed a groundwater flow model (SJRRPGW) of the SJRRP study area that is within 5 miles of the San Joaquin River and adjacent bypass system from Friant Dam to the Merced River. The primary goal of the SJRRP is to reestablish the natural ecology of the river to a degree that restores salmon and other fish populations. Increased flows in the river, particularly during the spring salmon run, are a key component of the restoration effort. A potential consequence of these increased river flows is the exacerbation of existing irrigation drainage problems along a section of the river between Mendota and the confluence with the Merced River. Historically, this reach typically was underlain by a water table within 10 feet of the land surface, thus requiring careful irrigation management and (or) artificial drainage to maintain crop health. The SJRRPGW is designed to meet the short-term needs of the SJRRP; future versions of the model may incorporate potential enhancements, several of which are identified in this report. The SJRRPGW was constructed using the USGS groundwater flow model MODFLOW and was built on the framework of the USGS Central Valley Hydrologic Model (CVHM) within which the SJRRPGW model domain is embedded. The Farm Process (FMP2) was used to simulate the supply and demand components of irrigated agriculture. The Streamflow-Routing Package (SFR2) was used to simulate the streams and bypasses and their interaction with the aquifer system. The 1,300-square mile study area was subdivided into 0.25-mile by 0.25-mile cells. The sediment texture of the aquifer system, which was used to distribute hydraulic properties by model cell, was refined from that used in the CVHM to better represent the natural heterogeneity of aquifer-system materials within the model domain. In addition, the stream properties were updated from the CVHM to better simulate stream-aquifer interactions, and water-budget subregions were refined to better simulate agricultural water supply and demand. External boundary conditions were derived from the CVHM. The SJRRPGW was calibrated for April 1961 to September 2003 by using groundwater-level observations from 133 wells and streamflow observations from 19 streamgages. The model was calibrated using public-domain parameter estimation software (PEST) in a semi-automated manner. The simulated groundwater-level elevations and trends (including seasonal fluctuations) and surface-water flow magnitudes and trends reasonably matched observed data. The calibrated model is planned to be used to assess the potential effects of restoration flows on agricultural lands and the relative capabilities of proposed SJRRP actions to reduce these effects.

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DRERIP Ecosystem Restoration Model: Tidal marsh

California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) | October 1st, 2008

Summary

Tidal marshes are a subset of estuarine wetlands defined by the presence of emergent vegetation types uniquely adapted to sheltered intertidal zones of temperate and subt

Tidal marshes are a subset of estuarine wetlands defined by the presence of emergent vegetation types uniquely adapted to sheltered intertidal zones of temperate and subtropical coastal plains (Chapman 1960, 1976, Mitsch & Gosselink 1993). They are found across a full range of salinity conditions from seawater on the immediate coast to freshwater tidal reaches of estuarine river systems. Marshes are transitional ecosystems that provide critical connections between adjacent subtidal and terrestrial ecosystems within the estuarine landscape (Simenstad et al. 2000; Levin et al. 2001). These “critical transition zones” often function as conduits for substantial fluxes of materials and energy (Ewel et al. 2001), and provide a variety of valuable ecosystems functions, goods and services related to the maintenance of biodiversity, fish and wildlife habitat, water quality, flood abatement and carbon sequestration (Rabenhorst 1995, Costanza et al. 1997, Weslawski et al. 2004, Zedler & Kercher 2005). However, estuarine marshes and the biotic communities that depend on them are vulnerable to both direct and indirect anthropogenic impacts (Holland et al. 2004, Snelgrove et al. 2004), and the functionality of these systems can be difficult to restore once severely impacted (Zedler & Kercher 2005). The San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta estuary is perhaps the most hydrologically-engineered estuarine wetland system in the United States, and an estimated 95% of the marsh area that existed there in 1850 has been altered or converted to other land uses (Josselyn 1983). The principal source of freshwater input to the estuary enters through the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers; their inland delta (the Delta) is the terminus of a watershed that drains about 40% of California’s land area. Anthropogenic alterations of the estuary’s hydrologic characteristics have profoundly affected the extent and functioning of the tidal wetlands, particularly in the brackish and tidal fresh portions of the upper estuary associated with the Delta. Although the conceptual model presented in Figure 1 is intended to capture the features and dynamics of tidal marshes in the Delta (e.g., Suisun Bay to the upriver extent of the tides in the Delta), oligohaline and tidal freshwater marshes generally remain poorly understood. Recent texts (e.g., Sharitz & Pennings 2006) still consider the review by Odum (1988) as the best treatment of these low salinity tidal ecosystems. Consequently, development of the current conceptual biological model often required us to judiciously borrow from the more extensive literature on temperate salt marshes in diverse regions. Although one of our principal objectives in developing this model involves identifying the dominant processes and interactions that characterize restoring marshes at various stages of development, the model is intended to characterize the dynamics of “equilibrium” marshes at their mature state of geomorphic and ecological functioning (Pestrong 1972, Reed 2002, Williams et al. 2002). Our rationale is that restoring marshes are considerably variable and that trying to capture intermediate stages of development (e.g., positions along a development “trajectory”; Simenstad & Thom 1996 [however, see Zedler & Callaway 1999]) would introduce too much variability for a single model, and because the ultimate objective of restoration is the self-sustaining, equilibrium condition. However, we have sought were appropriate to describe important processes that influence restoration trajectories and affect the ecosystem functions, goods and services that marshes provide in various landscape settings that are found in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

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Eel River Restoration and Conservation Plan

California Trout | June 30th, 2024

Summary

This Eel River Restoration and Conservation Plan (Plan) will build on ... opportunities to guide substantial, collaborative, and long-term restoration and conservation ac

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Effective at Any Scale: Watershed-based Decision Support Tools

San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) | July 1st, 2016

Summary

EcoAtlas tools apply the USEPA’s three-level wetland monitoring and assessment framework for wetland and stream protection in a variety of California watersheds, an

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Conservation Strategy for Restoration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley Regions

CVFPP Conservation Strategy Appendix I. Floodplain Restoration Opportunity Analysis

Dam removal and anadromous salmonid (Oncorhynchus spp.) conservation in California

Delta Landscapes Executive Summary

Delta Landscapes: A Delta Renewed User Guide

Dispersion and Stratification Dynamics in the Upper Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel

Documentation of a Groundwater Flow Model (SJRRPGW) for the San Joaquin River Restoration Program Study Area, California

DRERIP Ecosystem Restoration Model: Tidal marsh

Eel River Restoration and Conservation Plan

Effective at Any Scale: Watershed-based Decision Support Tools

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