Trends in the Sediment Yield of the Sacramento River, California, 1957–2001
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UC Davis San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science Title Trends in the Sediment Yield of the Sacramento River, California, 1957–2001 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/891144f4 Journal San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science, 2(2) ISSN 1546-2366 Authors Wright, Scott A. Schoellhamer, David H. Publication Date 2004 DOI 10.15447/sfews.2004v2iss2art2 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California MAY 2004 SAN FRANCISCO ESTUARYESTUARYESTUARY&WAT & WATERSHED&WATERSHEDERSHED Published for the San Francisco Bay-Delta SCIENCEScience Consortium by the John Muir Institute of the Environment Trends in the Sediment Yield of the Sacramento River, California, 1957 – 2001 Scott A. Wright and David H. Schoellhamer U.S. Geological Survey, Sacramento, California ABSTRACT quate sediment supply will be needed to build subsided Human activities within a watershed, such as agricul- areas to elevations typical of tidal wetlands as well as ture, urbanization, and dam building, may affect the to keep pace with projected sea-level rise. In a broader sediment yield from the watershed. Because the equi- context, the study underscores the need to address librium geomorphic form of an estuary is dependent in anthropogenic impacts on watershed sediment yield part on the sediment supply from the watershed, when considering actions such as restoration within anthropogenic activities within the watershed have the downstream depositional areas. potential to affect estuary geomorphology. The Sacramento River drains the northern half of KEYWORDS California’s Central Valley and is the primary source of sediment to San Francisco Bay. In this paper, it is Sediment yield, Sacramento River, suspended-sediment shown that the delivery of suspended-sediment from transport, hydraulic mining, reservoir sedimentation, the Sacramento River to San Francisco Bay has land-use impacts, watershed disturbance. decreased by about one-half during the period 1957 to 2001. Many factors may be contributing to the trend SUGGESTED CITATION in sediment yield, including the depletion of erodible sediment from hydraulic mining in the late 1800s, Wright SA, Schoellhamer DH. 2004. Trends in the trapping of sediment in reservoirs, riverbank protec- sediment yield of the Sacramento River, California, tion, altered land-uses (such as agriculture, grazing, 1957-2001. San Francisco Estuary and Watershed urbanization, and logging), and levees. This finding Science [online serial]. Vol. 2, Issue 2 (May 2004), has implications for planned tidal wetland restoration Article 2. activities around San Francisco Bay, where an ade- http://repositories.cdlib.org/jmie/sfews/vol2/iss2/art2 SAN FRANCISCO ESTUARY & WATERSHED SCIENCE INTRODUCTION rates in Chesapeake Bay have increased two- to three- fold since European settlement (Donoghue 1990; River systems transport sediment from erosional areas Zimmerman and Canuel 2002). In addition, changes in of watersheds to depositional areas, such as lowland the delivery of sediment from the watershed may floodplains and estuaries. Over long-term geomorphic time scales, the processes of erosion and deposition, affect turbidity in the estuary, and thus photosynthesis along with sea-level change, likely attain some form and primary production (Cloern 1987), as well as the of geomorphic equilibrium that includes the landforms delivery, distribution, and fate of sediment related found in estuaries, such as tidal wetlands. Humans contaminants (Domagalski and Kuivila 1993; Flegal have the potential to disrupt this balance by altering and others 1996; Schoellhamer and others 2003). The the processes on either end of the system. Changes in Central Valley of California, USA, and San Francisco land-use activities within the watershed, such as Bay (Figure 1) have experienced significant human urbanization, agriculture, and dam building, have the influences since the discovery of gold in Sierra potential to alter the sediment yield from erosional Nevada foothills in 1849. In this paper, the effects of areas. At the downstream end, diking and filling of human development on the sediment yield of the depositional areas such as wetlands may lead to redis- Sacramento River are studied by examining suspend- tribution of sediment and deposition in previously ed-sediment records for 1957 through 2001. open water environments. For example, sedimentation The Sacramento River drains approximately 68 mil- lion km2 of the northern half of California’s Central Valley (Figure 1). The watershed is bounded on the west by the Coast Range, on the north by the Cascades, and on the east by the Sierra Nevada. The mountain ranges and foothills supply sediment to the major river systems, which drain to San Francisco Bay (Bryan 1923; Harwood and Helley 1987). The Sacramento River drains the northern portion of the Central Valley and delivers the majority of sediment to San Francisco Bay, approximately seven times the sediment yield of the San Joaquin River (Oltmann and others 1999), which drains the southern portion of the valley. Several previous studies have estimated the annual sediment yield of Central Valley rivers and/or sediment delivery to and through San Francisco Bay. Gilbert (1917) estimated the pre-hydraulic mining and peak mining sediment yield to be approximately 0.8 and 7.3 million metric tons per year, respectively, illustrating the dramatic effect of gold-related hydraulic mining in the watershed (discussed further in the "Discussion" section, page 9). More recent esti- mates (Krone 1979, 1996; Porterfield 1980; Ogden Beeman 1992; McKee and others 2002) are less than that of the mining peak and indicate that sediment yield decreased during the 20th century (Figure 2). In addition to hydraulic mining the following anthro- pogenic activities are among those affecting erosion, Figure 1. Site map of the Sacramento River watershed, transport, and deposition dynamics within the water- California. 8-digit numbers denote USGS gage stations. shed: altered land-use (agriculture and urbanization), MAY 2004 delta in the context of CALFED restoration objectives was the primary motivation for this study. FLOW AND SEDIMENT DATA RECORDS The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) monitored daily flow and suspended-sediment discharge on the Sacramento River just upstream of the delta for water years 1957 through 2001. All data used in this study were taken from three USGS databases (USGS 2001a, 2001b, 2001c). The gage was moved from I Street in downtown Sacramento (USGS gage 11447500) to Freeport (USGS gage 11447650) following water year 1979 (Figure 1). The Freeport gage is about 21 river kilometers downstream from the American River con- fluence (near I Street) in Sacramento. Figure 3 shows the daily records of flow (Q, m3 sec-1), suspended-sedi- ment discharge (Qs, kg sec-1), and discharge-weighted Figure 2. Results of several previous studies of sediment yield to cross-section average concentration (C = Q /Q, mg L-1) San Francisco Bay, California, showing the increase due to s respectively. No significant shift in the records hydraulic mining and subsequent decrease (Mt is million metric tons). occurred after the gage was moved because no major tributaries enter between the two locations. Visual dams and reservoirs, levees and riverbank protection, inspection of the daily records revealed no obvious and logging. A discussion of each of these activities trend in flow, but revealed possible decreasing trends and their potential effects on sediment yield is provid- in suspended-sediment discharge and concentration. ed in the "Discussion" section on page 9. Over the past 200 years, tidal marsh area in San Francisco Bay has decreased by 79% due human activ- ities (Goals Project 1999). Large areas of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta were leveed and turned into highly productive agricultural "islands." Recently, a group of California state and federal agencies (CALFED, http://calwater.ca.gov/) has been charged with improving the quality and reliability of California's water supplies and reviving the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem. One alternative being considered for improving the ecological health of the estuary is restoring tidal action to some historic tidal marsh areas. However, land subsidence within the Delta and forecasted rising sea-level dictate that ade- quate sediment supply for deposition is crucial for restoring these areas to elevations typical of tidal marshlands. Thus, the sediment supply and location of deposition are critical factors for identifying potential Figure 3. Daily flow (Q), suspended-sediment discharge (Qs), and restoration sites and determining the success of each concentration (C) for the Sacramento River at Sacramento/ project. Addressing the sediment supply to the bay and Freeport. Note that Qs and C were scaled to separate the records vertically. SAN FRANCISCO ESTUARY & WATERSHED SCIENCE Figure 3 illustrates that the annual cycle of wet and dry seasons is altered by climate-induced multi-year droughts. Flow was greatest during the winter months when precipitation was greatest, and low during the dry season from spring to autumn. Droughts in 1976 – 1977 and 1987 – 1992 that reduced flows and suspend- ed-sediment discharge followed a similar pattern (Figure 3). In addition, the Yolo Bypass (constructed in the early 1930s to route floodwaters around Sacra- mento), removed floodwaters from the Sacramento River upstream from the gage (see Figure 1) during some