Publications

The Salton Sea is a 1000-km2 terminal lake located in the desert area of southeastern California. This saline (∼44 000 mg l−1 dissolved solids) lake started as fresh water in 1905–07 by accidental flooding of the Colorado River, and it is maintained by agricultural runoff of irrigation water diverted from the Colorado River. The Salton Sea and surrounding wetlands have recently acquired

The access of almost all 270 million U.S. residents to reliable, safe drinking water distinguishes the United States in the twentieth century from that of the nineteenth century. The United States is a relatively water-abundant country with moderate population growth; nonetheless, current trends are sufficient to strain water resources over time, especially on a regional basis. We have...

Delta smelt abundance in San Francisco Estuary has been declining since 1983. The exposure of delta smelt to toxic pesticides during larval and juvenile life stages may be one possible factor of this decline (Bennett and Moyle 1996; Moyle and others 1996). Although pesticides have been detected in the Delta (MacCoy and others 1995; Kuivila and others 1999), minimal data on pesticide...

We investigated the degree of flexibility in retention strategies of young fishes in the low‐salinity zone (LSZ) of the San Francisco Estuary during years of highly variable river flow. We conducted depth‐stratified sampling over three full tidal cycles in each year from 1994 to 1996. In 1994, exotic striped bass (Morone saxatilis), native longfin smelt (Spirinchus thaleichthys), and...

Applications of transport time scales are pervasive in biological, hydrologic, and geochemical studies yet these times scales are not consistently defined and applied with rigor in the literature. We compare three transport time scales (flushing time, age, and residence time) commonly used to measure the retention of water or scalar quantities transported with water. We identify the...

We report measurements of seasonal variability in the C‐N stable isotope ratios of plants collected across the habitat mosaic of San Francisco Bay, its marshes, and its tributary river system. Analyses of 868 plant samples were binned into 10 groups (e.g., terrestrial riparian, freshwater phytoplankton, salt marsh) to determine whether C‐N isotopes can be used as biomarkers for tracing...

Obtaining values of net infiltration, groundwater travel time, and recharge is necessary at the Yucca Mountain site, Nevada, USA, in order to evaluate the expected performance of a potential repository as a containment system for high-level radioactive waste. However, the geologic complexities of this site, its low precipitation and net infiltration, with numerous mechanisms operating

The associations of resident fish communities with environmental variables and stream condition were evaluated at representative sites within the Sacramento River Basin, California between 1996 and 1998 using multivariate ordination techniques and by calculating six fish community metrics. In addition, the results of the current study were compared with recent studies in the San Joaquin...

Processes influencing estuarine phytoplankton growth occur over a range of time scales, but many conceptual and numerical models of estuarine phytoplankton production dynamics neglect mechanisms occurring on the shorter (e.g., intratidal) time scales. We used a numerical model to explore the influence of short time-scale variability in phytoplankton sources and sinks on long-term growth...

The importance of algal and detrital food supplies to the planktonic food web of a highly disturbed, estuarine ecosystem was evaluated in response to declining zooplankton and fish populations. We assessed organic matter bioavailability among a diversity of habitats and hydrologic inputs over 2 years in San Francisco Estuary's Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Results show that...

This paper describes how heat dissipation sensors, used to measure soil water matric potential, were analyzed to develop a normalized calibration equation and a temperature correction method. Inference of soil matric potential depends on a correlation between the variable thermal conductance of the sensor's porous ceramic and matric potential. Although this correlation varies among...

Continuous, high-resolution δ18O records from cored sediments of Pyramid Lake, Nevada, indicate that oscillations in the hydrologic balance occurred, on average, about every 150 years (yr) during the past 7630 calendar years (cal yr). The records are not stationary; during the past 2740 yr, drought durations ranged from 20 to 100 yr and intervals between droughts ranged from 80 to 230 yr