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A Review of the Use of Science and Adaptive Management in California's Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan (2011) / Chapter Skim
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4 Use of Science in the BDCP
Pages 29-37

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From page 29...
... As a unit, the draft BDCP combines a catalog of overwhelming detail with qualitative analyses of many separate actions that often appear disconnected and poorly integrated. Thus, although the biological descriptions and scenarios reflect a strong understanding of the scientific basis for many individual actions by the BDCP authors, there is no obvious distillation, synthesis and integration of the material into a cohesive decision-making process.
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From page 30...
... Although there are limitations to this analysis, the results can offer guidance for prioritizing actions within the BDCP. For example, the DRMS study indicates that the benefits of the restorative conservation measures could be lost if levees failed and concludes that current levee management strategies in the Delta are unsustainable because of seismic risk, high water conditions, sea level rise and land subsidence.
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From page 31...
... INTEGRATION OF CLIMATE CHANGE ANALYSIS Climate change has been and will continue to be a major driver of hydrologic and landscape changes in the Delta. Projected changes in the primary drivers of climate change―namely rising temperatures, changing patterns of precipitation, and sea level rise―are expected to result in significant impacts to the ecosystems of both the Delta region and its tributary watersheds and will adversely impact the water supplies that are critical to both urban and agricultural users who depend on the Delta, the major reservoirs and the water conveyance systems (Chung et al., 2009)
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From page 32...
... to the panel during its open session on December 8, 2010, Armin Munevar, a consultant from the firm CH2M HILL, did include the aforementioned analysis. A summary of this work appears in a December 2010 report entitled Climate Change Characterization and Analysis in California Water Resources Planning Studies (DWR, 2010, pp.
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From page 33...
... Groups of GCM predictions and the corresponding downscaled information demonstrate a significant spread in both precipitation and temperature, and the above approach of using five scenarios to select a set of model runs bracketing the potential changes in precipitation and temperature appears to be adequate until better methods become available. The above scenarios for climate change and sea level rise have been combined with a variety of hydrologic, operational, and hydrodynamic models to investigate the performance of numerous BDCP scenarios with respect to such metrics as changes in the timing and magnitude of watershed run-off, reservoir storage, flows in the southern part of the Delta, and seasonal variations in the salinity gradient (the position of X2)
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From page 34...
... The "drivers of change" (Figure 5) are quantifiable, "suitable for model evaluation" and directly linked to hydrologic, biogeochemical and biotic changes that accompany diversion of freshwater from the Delta and parallel increases in nutrient and other pollutants resulting from upstream anthropogenic activities.
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From page 35...
... The panel supports the concept of a quantitative evaluation of the significance of stressors, ideally using life-cycle models, as part of the BDCP, but such a quantitative evaluation is not part of the draft of the BDCP. The panel concludes that in addition to being incomplete, the absence of a data-based, quantitative assessment and analysis of stressors, ideally using life-cycle models, that supports the effects analysis and adaptive management, is a significant scientific
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From page 36...
... Evidence of a coordinated conservation and water management strategy is the first step in establishing public trust that this is a scientifically credible effort. Clarification of the volume of water to be diverted or mention of how it will be diverted is crucial to a scientific analysis.
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From page 37...
... . There is no mention that quantities diverted may be constrained by various provisions of California water law, by possible changes in the extent of irrigated agriculture south of the Delta, and by potential changes in cropping patterns fueled by globalizing forces of supply and demand for food.
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Key Terms

  • effects analysis
  • sea level
  • level rise
  • adaptive management
  • potential changes

  • california water
  • management strategy
  • conservation measures
  • future climate
  • water supplies

  • change analysis
  • quantitative analysis
  • demand management
  • including regime
  • significant environmental

  • management strategies
  • management actions
  • bdcp partners
  • delta region
  • conservation strategy

  • primary drivers
  • tributary watersheds
  • regime shifts
  • climate projections
  • climate models

  • analysis climate
  • climate variability
  • entitled climate
  • change scenarios
  • change implications


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