San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary
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The San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is one of the largest estuaries in the United States. It provides water to more than 25 million California residents, farmlands, and key fish and wildlife habitats. To help ensure the health of this crucial estuary, the U.S. Geological Survey provides science essential to address issues of importance to our partners and the public.
San Francisco Bay and Delta Overview Video
Learn about the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem, current management issues, and some of the monitoring and research the USGS is conducting in coordination with others.
Watch VideoUSGS Science at Work
This fact sheet provides an overview of USGS research in the San Francisco Bay-Delta region.
Read MoreStories From the Field
USGS scientists track waterfowl in Suisun Marsh. Follow the team as they go into the marsh to collect data. Be sure to view the gallery of photos on the multimedia tab after you read the story.
Read the StoryPublications
Survival, travel time, and utilization of Yolo Bypass, California, by outmigrating acoustic-tagged late-fall Chinook salmon
Juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) migrating through California's Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta toward the Pacific Ocean face numerous challenges to their survival. The Yolo Bypass is a broad floodplain of the Sacramento River that floods in about 70 percent of years in response to large, uncontrolled runoff events. As one of...
Pope, Adam C.; Perry, Russell W.; Hance, Dalton J.; Hansel, Hal C.
Mercury on a landscape scale—Balancing regional export with wildlife health
The Cosumnes River watershed requires a 57–64 percent reduction in loads to meet the new Delta methylmercury (MeHg) total maximum daily load allocation, established by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. Because there are no large point sources of MeHg in the watershed, the focus of MeHg load reductions will fall upon non-...
Marvin-DiPasquale, Mark C.; Windham-Myers, Lisamarie; Fleck, Jacob A.; Ackerman, Joshua T.; Eagles-Smith, Collin A.; McQuillen, Harry
Effects of the proposed California WaterFix North Delta Diversion on flow reversals and entrainment of juvenile Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) into Georgiana Slough and the Delta Cross Channel, northern California
The California Department of Water Resources and Bureau of Reclamation propose new water intake facilities on the Sacramento River in northern California that would convey some of the water for export to areas south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (hereinafter referred to as the Delta) through tunnels rather than through the Delta. The...
Perry, Russell W.; Romine, Jason G.; Pope, Adam C.; Evans, Scott D.