Masters Thesis

Tradeoffs of water security & adequate ecological protection during drought, coastal California

Instream flow is an important limiting factor influencing aquatic health. Under a decentralized watershed management regime, private reservoir storage is being promoted in a coastal California watershed to maintain ecological protections and water security during low-flow conditions. This study establishes a method for determining the annual water diverted for current private reservoir storage by using GIS methods to determine the maximum change in storage that is then compared to publicly available user reported water use data. In addition, this study investigates streamflow during low-flow conditions and finds that drought conditions tended to prolong the end o f stream intermittency and that private reservoir recharge has the potential to extend intermittency. Finally, instream water temperature data was evaluated; temperatures were often not conducive to salmonid growth and often not even to their survival. Water temperature data also showed trends of lower temperatures during dry-type years and higher temperatures during wet-type years

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