<div dir="ltr"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;font-family:arial;word-wrap:break-word"><font size="2"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px none;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:20px;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background:white none repeat scroll 0% 0%"><br></span></font></p><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;font-family:arial;word-wrap:break-word"><font size="2"><span style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px none;color:rgb(34,34,34);font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:20px;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background:white none repeat scroll 0% 0%">The Nature Conservancy has released an important <strong>report on groundwater-surfacewater interaction</strong> in the Central Valley.</span></font></p><font size="2">
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</font><p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;font-family:arial;word-wrap:break-word"><font size="2">Summary:</font></p><font size="2">
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<div style="margin:0px;padding:0px">Groundwater is intimately connected 
to surface water, which has profound implications for sustainable water 
resource management. California has historically overlooked this 
important interaction and as a consequence, decisions about groundwater 
extractions have generally failed to address the resulting impacts to 
aquatic ecosystems such as rivers, wetlands and springs. This has 
contributed to a loss of approximately 95 percent of the historical 
wetlands and river habitat in California’s Central Valley.</div>
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<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px">In February 2016, 
the Conservancy published a study that uses an integrated hydrologic 
model to reconstruct the historical impacts of groundwater use on 
groundwater levels and stream flow conditions in California’s Central 
Valley. The results illustrate how rivers and streams that historically 
gained surface flows from groundwater now lose surface flows to 
groundwater. As a consequence, Central Valley rivers are now losing 
almost 1.5 billion gallons of water each day – that is enough water to 
supply 2.5 times the water needs for Los Angeles—than they did in the 
1920s.  In addition, groundwater aquifers contain 6.5 trillion gallons 
less water now than they did at the start of the study period.</p>
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<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px">Groundwater 
sustainability agencies across the state will soon be required to manage
 groundwater resources to avoid causing undesirable results to 
groundwater levels and interconnected groundwater and surface water. 
These groundwater levels and areas of interconnection support 
groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs). Therefore, an important first 
step in sustainable groundwater management is to understand how 
groundwater pumping impacts surface water and GDEs, both of which 
include streams.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px">A summary report and the full technical document are available here:</p>
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<div style="margin:0px;padding:0px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;font-size:12.09px;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:normal;line-height:9.92186px;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><a style="color:rgb(0,102,204);text-decoration:none;outline:medium none" title="This external link will open in a new window" href="http://scienceforconservation.org/downloads/groundwater_and_stream_interaction" target="_blank">http://scienceforconservation.org/downloads/groundwater_and_stream_interaction</a></div>
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