Increased frequency and severity of droughts threatens California's endangered salmon population--but pools that serve as drought refuges could make the difference between life and death for these vulnerable fish, according to a study by researchers from UC Berkeley and California Sea Grant, a partnership between NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.

Last spring, communities across the Willamette Valley watched rivers and reservoirs swell rapidly as a tropical storm delivered historic late-season rainfall. And as some battled flooding -- and others the threat of I -- the reality was abundantly clear: We had more water than we could handle.

With warm, dry weather forecasted, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Portland District, is refilling its 13 Willamette Valley Project reservoirs and two Rogue River Basin Project reservoirs to prepare for the spring and summer conservation seasons.

Across the globe, humans are using freshwater resources faster than those resources can be naturally replenished. In the Western United States, for example, water extractions from the Colorado River have exceeded total river flow, causing rapid depletion of water storage reservoirs. In addition, as these water sources dry up, species of fish, plants and animals are also adversely impacted.

January was a wet month in much of the Columbia River basin with higher than average rain and snowfall, yet cumulative precipitation for the current water year that began Oct. 1, 2019 is lower than the 30 year average. That likely won’t improve much over the next 6 to 10 days as meteorologists at NOAA’s Northwest River Forecast Center are predicting below normal temperatures and normal precipitation.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife last Friday (Jan. 10) was working to locate and retrieve an empty net pen structure that came unmoored along the Columbia River one day earlier, but severe weather hampered search efforts.

Washington state this week changed its water quality standards by raising the amount of total dissolved gas it will allow at Columbia and Snake river dams during juvenile salmon and steelhead migrations, paving the way for higher spill levels this spring.

The upstream migration of adult spring chinook salmon in the Snake River slows down in the Lower Monumental Dam to Little Goose Dam reach more than in other reaches in the Snake River.

Warm waters are a threat to cold water fish like salmon and trout. But a study led by researchers at University of California, Davis suggests that habitats with abundant food sources may help buffer the effects of increasing water temperature.