Writing on the other blog

One of my favorite water views from Wildcat Peak in Berkeley. Photo by me.

In addition to writing here on what as become a fairly occasional basis, I write things with some regularity for our blog The Confluence (and for other publications, but we'll deal with that later).

For folks interested in California water issues, the posts I've written this year:

Identifying gaps in protecting California’s native fish -- Ted Grantham at UC Berkeley worked with research folks at The Nature Conservancy and Trout Unlimited to analyze where native fish are currently protected versus where they need to be and found some surprising answers.

Changes in irrigation technology may lead to water quality gains -- Andrew Gray at UC Riverside did some cool work on how drip irrigation is not only more water efficient, but can also reduce sediment loads to waterways.

Cutting edge tools to identify potential groundwater well problems -- Clarissa Noble at UC Merced is using ecosystem genomic techniques to look at biofouling in groundwater wells. The photos really help make this issue a little more concrete.

Working with salty soils and homemade research tools in the Delta -- Michelle Leinfelder-Miles is a farm advisor in UC Ag and Natural Resources who has been working on how salinity impacts alfalfa. Her anecdote about not being "local enough" is one of my favorite of all time.

Incorporating social equity into California water management -- Carolina Balazs and Johnathon London at UC Davis have been working with environmental justice groups to figure out how to incorporate equity into water management. Love this project.

From surviving to thriving: trees in street-side stormwater facilities --Igor Lacan is an advisor in UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (and a former labmate of mine) is working on figuring out how well trees survive in streetside stormwater facilities. As more cities move toward treating stormwater as a resource rather than a nuisance, this question is on point.

I obviously have some strong feelings about water, so it's fun to be able to spend time thinking about the diversity of work that researchers are doing across the state.

You can subscribe to that blog or get the RSS feed in whatever way you do that.

Related writing:

• From water to agriculture, more evidence that human relationships matter
• The beauty of being lost
• Joy for this world, just as it is