- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
For more than a century, California farmers have extracted water from underground to irrigate crops during droughts or where surface water is not available. However, in recent decades, water reservoirs that accumulated over thousands of years underneath the state's valleys are being tapped with deeper and deeper wells that pull out more water than can be replenished in the winter.
The 2012-14 drought intensified the problem. Greater groundwater usage than recharge has left some rural homeowners' wells completely dry. Land is subsiding as clay layers that are interspersed between sandy and gravelly aquifers beneath the surface compress due to lower pore water pressure, which is responsible for keeping clay pores open.
To...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
It can be challenging to imagine the stores of water underlying California. But Thomas Harter, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at UC Davis, shares a vivid vision of the state's vitally important groundwater resources.
In a videotaped presentation, Harter said California's Central Valley is like a giant bathtub; its walls are the Sierra Nevada and coast mountain ranges. Clay, silt, sand and gravel washed into the bathtub over millions of years and fresh water from streams, rivers and rainfall soaked into pores between sand and gravel pieces, between clay and silt particles, and in the fissures and cracks in rocks, where it has...
- Author: Eve Hightower
The size, scope and intensity of research at Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility at UC Davis make the 300-acre experiment like no other in the world. The ranch’s unique focus on sustainability research is what draws producers, researchers and students to its annual Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Field Day.
Located just west of the main UC Davis campus, Russell Ranch is a testing ground for the long-term sustainability of various farming methods. Research at the ranch focuses on fundamental components of agricultural production – energy, water and land resources –...