The Bay-Delta Estuary: From Crisis to Sustainability

Mandeville Island, Quimby Island, and Piper Slough (central Delta); courtesy of EDF.

We’re going to go out on a limb here: Transbay Blog is, after all, about city and transit planning, not water planning. But this website is also dedicated to, perhaps above all, how to accommodate responsible and well-planned growth — and impacts on water resources are a central part of that conversation. Discussion about infrastructure, land use, and the environment are also regularly featured here, and at the intersection of those three themes (and many other themes still) lies a topic of utmost importance to the future of California: the longstanding and continually unfolding crisis at the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. In spite of recent efforts to get a better handle on how best to address the crisis, the problems facing the Delta remain formidable, and the tension is only heightened while we wait for the region’s next major earthquake.

What follows is series of posts on the crisis facing the Bay-Delta Estuary. The posts will appear over the course of the next couple of weeks (and will be interrupted, as necessary, with postings on other topics). No single article could completely capture the complexity of this region, but hopefully this series will lend some interest and perspective on the needs, and the obstacles to addressing those needs; the history, politics, and players; as well as an update on recent efforts to tackle the diverse set of challenges posed by this ticking time bomb that lies just to the east of the Bay Area. The posts will be:

• An Introduction
• Levees, Climate Change, and Water Quality
• Shaking Things Up
• A Threatened Ecosystem
• Governance
• The Peripheral Canal
• Toward A Sustainable Delta Vision

This post here will serve as a table of contents, and hyperlinks will be added once new content is posted. Alternatively, you can also find the posts listed on the Water Resources page. I sincerely hope that readers will enjoy this series of posts. Even though the subject is not strictly about city planning in the sense usually discussed here, the issue is nonetheless one of grave concern for cities up and down California.