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California is ramping up for what may be another challenging year for wildfires. Though welcome rain occurred during the winter, it was already too late for the millions of trees that have died due to the historic drought and epidemic bark beetle infestation.

Though natural disturbance agents such as wildfire, drought, insects and disease eventually restore a balance in natural ecosystems, the drastic and periodic disturbances of catastrophic wildfires and large-scale tree mortality from bark beetles are not compatible with a population of 38 million people, many of whom like to live in a forested environment.

The fight to save the delta smelt, the beleaguered fish at the center of an increasingly bitter tug-of-war over water rights in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, is as close to a lost cause as ever, but fisheries biologists vow to continue the struggle to protect the species.

Anthea Hansen, general manager of the Patterson, Calif.-based Del Puerto Water District, described the exciting work to bring more water stability in the form of recycled water to multiple Central Valley cities—in our five-part series on the North Valley Regional Recycled Water Program (NVRRWP). 

“After six and a half years of effort,” Hansen said, “we have fully completed all of our environmental documentation, and most of the permitting is in hand.” Recently, the partners have interviewed and selected the preferred firm to construct the Modesto component of the project, so that process is underway.”

For two weeks in August, the researchers flew a plane called the Carnegie Airborne Observatory over forests throughout the state and aimed a laser-guided sensor at the trees to measure the water content of their canopies.up to 58 million trees have suffered a water deficit classified as extremely threatening to long-term forest health. California’s years-long drought is not only having a distressing impact on humans but also on vegetation, as years of little or no rain is taking a big toll on the state’s forests, a new study revealed.

Several months after storms fueled by a fierce El Niño exploded over the northern Sierra Nevada, California’s mountain snowpack has nearly disappeared.

Scientists bid adieu last week to an El Niño that had been among the strongest on record, but that brought disappointingly few wintertime snowflakes and raindrops to the Southwest. Snow that bucketed down in northern California during a string of March storms has largely withered during a sunny and warm spring.