California is recognized as one of the world’s hotspots of biodiversity, and many of our ecosystems depend on groundwater. Scientist Melissa Rohde has spent years coming up with strategies for protecting ecosystems that could be pumped dry.
Heavy rains this winter and spring sent torrential flows down creeks and rivers, and L.A. County managed to capture a significant amount of that stormwater: an estimated 96 billion gallons — enough to supply nearly one-fourth of the county’s population for a year. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-05-11/los-angeles-stormwater-capture
About 500,000 hatchery-raised salmon were released into the Klamath River last week. Indigenous leaders said they expect these fish will flourish when they migrate back upstream in a few years to spawn in a free-flowing river. "They're a symbol of hope." https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-04-21/klamath-river-salmon-released
Federal officials have discovered damage inside Glen Canyon Dam that could force limits on how much Colorado River water is released at low reservoir levels, raising risks the Southwest could face shortages that were previously unforeseen.
Reservoirs that once submerged valleys have been drained, revealing a stark landscape that had been underwater for generations. As dams are dismantled along the Klamath River, a parallel effort to restore the scarred watershed is taking root. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-24/klamath-river-restoration
On #WorldWaterDay, I'd like to share a few recent pieces about some of our water problems, as well as solutions, in California and other parts of the world: