Drought strategies
Flash video (7 min 35 sec)
Videography by Ken Zukin; produced by Paul Pfotenhauer
Download Adobe Flash (free)
UC Davis researchers work for solutions to save farms and fish
Three years of little rainfall have cost California dearly. Water restrictions for the agricultural sector could mean up to $800 million in lost income and force 25,000 people out of work in the California Central Valley.
This video demonstrates the need for farmers, scientists and policymakers to collaborate on plans to support California through the challenge of global climate change.
It looks at a variety of problems, beginning with how dry conditions in California are devastating native fish populations. UC Davis fish biologist Peter Moyle warns that in this century California native salmon and trout could go extinct and the current drought makes all that more complex.
Decades of pulling water from the Delta have interferred with natural flows and negatively impacted water quality, damaging wildlife habitat.
The problem gets worse as the rise in sea levels puts more pressure on the Delta levees. UC Davis water management engineer Jay Lund says a peripheral canal is the least expensive and most environmentally positive way to repair the unreliable Delta.
Meanwhile, geologists at UC Davis are finding clues to climate change deep beneath the Sierra. They are finding that cave deposits are like climate clocks. Results of their study show that climate in the Sierra is influenced by climate changes elsewhere.
On the UC Davis home page: Reservoirs, such as Lake Oroville, show the results of three years with low runoff from the melting snow in the Sierra. (California Department of Water Resources/photo taken in February 2009 showing the South Fork of the Feather River )