<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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<p style="margin:0px;padding:0px;font-family:arial;font-size:12pt;word-wrap:break-word"> </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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