Paul Work serves as the Program Chief for Estuarine Hydrodynamics and Sediment Transport at the USGS California Water Science Center in Sacramento, California. In this role he oversees and conducts research on flows of water, sediment, and other water quality constituents in San Francisco and adjoining bays and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta system and elsewhere. This work is funded by a variety of sponsors, involves a significant amount of real-time field measurements, and is motivated by a desire to maintain and improve the environmental health of the bay-estuary system and its inhabitants, while simultaneously meeting human needs for water.
Dr. Work joined USGS in 2013 after 20 years as a faculty member in civil and environmental engineering programs at Georgia Tech and Clemson University. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in civil engineering from the University of California - Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Coastal and Oceanographic Engineering from the University of Florida. He is a Professional Engineer and has served as a consultant on domestic and international port and harbor problems and development projects. He currently serves on the Tahoe Science Advisory Council and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission panel on sand mining.
Much of the Sacramento region is protected from flooding by levees constructed on the American and Sacramento Rivers, which join near downtown Sacramento before flowing to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Our group at the USGS continuously monitors suspended-sediment concentration (SSC), turbidity, dissolved oxygen, temperature, salinity, and water level at many sites throughout the San Francisco Bay (Bay) and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Rivers Delta (Delta).
Our work began in 1988 to explore the spatial and temporal variability of water quality and sediment transport and to provide...
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) is home to a diverse community of plants and animals and is the hub of California’s freshwater delivery system. The Delta supplies water for over 25 million Californians and supports millions of acres of farming, commercial and sport fishing, shipping and ports, and recreational boating.
USGS scientists work to provide information needed to evaluate the efficacy of ongoing U.S. Burueau of Reclamation water management efforts in Bay-Delta.
Widespread invasion by non-native, submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) may modify the sediment budget of an estuary, reducing the availability of inorganic sediment required by marshes to maintain their position in the tidal frame. The instantaneous trapping rate of suspended sediment in SAV patches in an estuary has not previously been quantified...
Work, Paul A.; Downing-Kunz, Maureen A.; Drexler, Judith Z.
Executive SummaryA field investigation intended to measure the potential for erosion of sediments beside the American and Sacramento Rivers near Sacramento, California, is described. The study featured two primary components: (1) drilling and soil sampling to reveal lithology, down to depths matching the local river thalweg, where possible, and (2...
Work, Paul A.; Livsey, Daniel N.
Sedimentation in a channel can reduce flood conveyance capability and potentially place nearby property and life at risk from flooding. In 1998, Marin County Public Works dredged the concrete-lined segment of Corte Madera Creek, which drains a hilly and largely urbanized watershed that terminates in San Francisco Bay, California. From then through...
Livsey, Daniel N.; Work, Paul A.; Downing-Kunz, Maureen A. The USGS California Water Science Center is heavily involved in the measurement of flow and water quality parameters in the San Francisco Estuary, with support from many partner agencies. The California Department of Water Resources (DWR), through the Interagency Ecological Program (IEP) is one of those agencies. This article describes the...
Work, Paul A.; Downing-Kunz, Maureen A.
This report describes work performed to quantify the erodibility of surface soils in the Yolo Bypass (Bypass) near Sacramento, California, for use in the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Yolo Bypass D-MCM mercury model. The Bypass, when not serving as a floodway, is heavily utilized for agriculture. During...
Work, Paul A.; Schoellhamer, David H. Erodibility of cohesive sediment in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (Delta) was investigated with an erosion microcosm. Erosion depths in the Delta and in the microcosm were estimated to be about one floc diameter over a range of shear stresses and times comparable to half of a typical tidal cycle. Using the conventional assumption of...
Schoellhamer, David H.; Manning, Andrew J.; Work, Paul A.
The San Francisco estuary is commonly defined to include San Francisco Bay (bay) and the adjacent Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta (delta). The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has operated a high-frequency (15-minute sampling interval) water-quality monitoring network in San Francisco Bay since the late 1980s (Buchanan and others, 2014). This...
Work, Paul A.; Downing-Kunz, Maureen A.; Livsey, Daniel N. A data set was acquired on a shallow mudflat in south San Francisco Bay that featured simultaneous, co-located optical and acoustic sensors for subsequent estimation of suspended sediment concentrations (SSC). The optical turbidity sensor output was converted to SSC via an empirical relation derived at a nearby site using bottle sample estimates...
Öztürk, Mehmet; Work, Paul A. A Gust erosion chamber was used to apply horizontal shear stress to sediment cores obtained at selected locations within the Yolo Bypass near Sacramento, California. The locations correspond to different land uses; two cores were taken at each site. The shear stress was increased in stepwise fashion, and turbidity of the effluent monitored. From...
Work, Paul; Schoellhamer, David H.; Weidich, Kurt A combined field and laboratory investigation was conducted to assess five options for creation of a recreational beach on a steep, armored shoreline on the eastern Black Sea coast. All designs incorporated a beach nourishment project placed between two existing, shore-normal, rubble-mound groins. Alternatives included the placement of a nearshore...
Karasu, Servet; Work, Paul A.; Uzlu, Ergun; Kankal, Murat; Yuksek, Omer
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) installed the first gage to measure the flow of water into California’s Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta from the Sacramento River in the late 1800s. Today, a network of 35 hydro-acoustic meters measure flow throughout the delta. This region is a critical part of California’s freshwater supply...
Burau, Jon; Ruhl, Cathy; Work, Paul A. A data set was acquired on a shallow mudflat in south San Francisco Bay that featured simultaneous, co-located optical and acoustic sensors for subsequent estimation of suspended sediment concentrations (SSC). The optical turbidity sensor output was converted to SSC via an empirical relation derived at a nearby site using bottle sample estimates...
Ozturk, Mehmet ; Work, Paul A.
In an article written for the Interagency Ecological Program for the San Francisco Estuary, Dr. Paul Work and Dr. Maureen Downing-Kunz, of the California Water Science Center, provide examples of the work being done to measure water flow and quality in the San Francisco Estuary.
Below is the article in its entirety.