Robin Meadows

FEATURE: New National Academies study tackles the wickedest of problems: Can California have its water and save its fish too?

Best of the Notebook Delta science Ecosystems Notebook News and Features Water project operations

April 8, 2024

by Robin Meadows The San Francisco Bay-Delta is already among the most intensively studied ecosystems in the world. Now 18...

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Nutrients from wastewater treatment plants may threaten coastal marine life―should California regulate them?

Robin Meadows

Best of the Notebook Ecosystems Notebook News and Features Science

March 7, 2024

Nutrients from human waste boost ocean acidification & hypoxia in CA―wastewater treatment agencies say regulation is premature, environmentalists say it’s...

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Future extremes: New models zoom in on California snowpacks and storms

Robin Meadows

Notebook News and Features Planning and management

February 23, 2024

by Robin Meadows When it comes to water, winter is a time of promise and peril in California. Our fate...

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Ramping up releases of hatchery Delta smelt to the wild

Robin Meadows

Delta science Fish and wildlife Notebook News and Features

January 29, 2024

By Robin Meadows It’s a lovely December morning in Rio Vista, a town of 10,000 in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta....

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: How AI can help protect California streams and fish

Robin Meadows

Best of the Notebook Notebook News and Features

January 4, 2024

by Robin Meadows Rivers in California once swelled and ebbed as the seasons changed and as wet years gave way...

FEATURE: New survey of Delta residents aims to boost quality of life and equity

Robin Meadows

Notebook News and Features Policy and regulation

November 28, 2023

by Robin Meadows The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta seems like one of the most scrutinized places on Earth, with decades of...

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Heat waves strike rivers too—can prescribed burns and beavers cool streams for salmon?

Robin Meadows

Ecosystems Science Wildfires and watersheds

November 2, 2023

By Robin Meadows While marine heat waves are well known, a 2022 study was the first to document aquatic temperature...

FEATURE: Rethinking water management in California: How to benefit people and wildlife

Robin Meadows

Notebook News and Features Planning and management

October 9, 2023

By Robin Meadows A new strategy could help California water managers meet the needs of people as well as the...

FEATURE: How a new satellite-based platform could transform water management in California

Robin Meadows

Notebook News and Features Planning and management

August 30, 2023

By Robin Meadows In 2015, when California was deep into a severe drought, state Senate Bill 88 tightened requirements for...

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: In 2021 people used all the runoff in the Delta watershed—how it happened and lessons learned

Robin Meadows

Delta science Notebook News and Features Planning and management

August 2, 2023

by Robin Meadows This year is a classic example of the way California’s water system was designed to work. Winter...

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Moving beyond crisis management for winter-run chinook

Robin Meadows

Best of the Notebook Fish and wildlife

July 25, 2023

By Robin Meadows Two years ago, California’s winter-run chinook were dealt a devastating blow. These endangered salmon were already struggling...

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: California’s unnatural river flows threaten aquatic life—here’s a (partial) fix

Robin Meadows

Best of the Notebook Notebook News and Features Science

July 13, 2023

By Robin Meadows As a New York Times columnist once quipped, “California’s water system might have been invented by a...

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Wild baby salmon raised on a California rice farm show stunning survival to the ocean

Robin Meadows

Best of the Notebook Fish and wildlife Notebook News and Features

June 22, 2023

When Steve Neader’s rice farm flooded last winter after three years of drought, a UC Davis research team checked to...

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Water rights key to San Joaquin Valley aquifer recharge

Robin Meadows

Groundwater News Notebook News and Features Water rights and water law

June 8, 2023

Written by Robin Meadows It sounds like such a simple fix for California’s groundwater woes. In phenomenally wet years like...

NOTEBOOK FEATURE: Sturgeon Arose During the Jurassic—Can They Survive the Anthropocene?

Robin Meadows

Delta science Fish and wildlife Notebook News and Features

May 31, 2023

Written by Robin Meadows Sturgeon have been around far longer than humans—a jaw-dropping 200 million years to our comparatively short...

Author Robin Meadows