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Exploring the beautiful nature of California


California Nature:  Sacramento River


The Sacramento is the most important river in California. Its riparian corridor is an oasis in the otherwise dry Mediterranean climate of the Central Valley. California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta supplies drinking water for 25 million people, irrigates the most productive agricultural land in the country, and provides critical habitat for the Pacific salmon fishery and millions of migratory birds. 

However, outdated water supply and flood management systems have decimated the ecosystem and closed the commercial salmon fishery all while leaving Californians ever more vulnerable to droughts and floods.  Now two separate efforts to reengineer the state water supply and flood control system threaten to increase water diversions and preclude floodplain restoration that is essential for salmon recovery and public safety. 
The Sacramento River is the largest river in California The Sacramento River is an important watercourse of Northern and Central California. The largest river in California, it rises on the eastern slopes of the Klamath Mountains, and after a journey south of over 400 miles, empties into Suisun Bay, an arm of the San Francisco Bay, and thence to the Pacific Ocean. The river drains an area of about 27,000 square miles  in the northern half of the state, mostly within a region bounded by the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada known as the Sacramento Valley. Its extensive watershed also reaches to the volcanic plateaus of Northeastern California, and a tiny portion of southern Oregon.

The river has been an important transportation route since the time of the region's first inhabitants, who appeared about 12,000 years ago. Hundreds of distinct tribes sharing regional customs and traditions inhabited the Sacramento Valley, receiving little disturbance from the first foreign visitors to see the river. One of these early explorers, Gabriel Moraga, gave the river the Spanish name, Rio de los Sacramentos, which was later shortened and anglicized into Sacramento.

The Sacramento's waters were once abundant in fish and other aquatic creatures, notably one of the southernmost runs of chinook salmon in North America. The natives of the Sacramento Valley drew upon the vast natural resources of the watershed, which had one of the densest Native American populations of California.

The river's abundant flow and the valley's fertile soil and mild climate ensured enough resources for hundreds of groups to share the land. Most of the villages were small. Although it was once commonly believed that the natives lived as tribes, they actually lived as bands, or family groups as small as twenty to thirty people. The Sacramento Valley was first settled about 12,000 years ago, but permanent villages were not established until about 8,000 years ago. Life for Native Americans in the Sacramento Valley was relatively simple and involved little violence. Little agriculture was practiced; most were hunter-gatherers and fishermen.
The beautiful Sacramento River in California nature Historically, the Sacramento River was bordered by up to 500,000 acres of riparian forest, with valley oak woodland covering the higher river terraces. Rapid development of the Sacramento Valley began in the second half of the 19th century. By 1868 some noticed a scarcity of woody vegetation. Use of trees for lumber and fuel, particularly cordwood for steamboats, reduced the extent of the riparian forests in the Sacramento Valley.

Since then urbanization and agricultural conversion have been primary factors eliminating riparian habitat. Water development projects, including channelization, dam and levee construction, bank protection, and streamflow regulation have altered the riparian system and contributed to vegetation loss.

Approximately 25,000 acres of riparian habitat and valley oak woodland remain within the Sacramento River corridor from Shasta Dam to its confluence with the Feather River.

The Sacramento River and the riparian corridor it supports provide a habitat for wildlife that is of national significance. It not only produces most of the salmon caught in California, it also produces most of the salmon caught off the coast of Oregon. In addition to the salmon and steelhead fisheries that most folks are familiar with, the river provides habitat for 250 species of mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and birds including 65 species of special concern, and 33 threatened, endangered, extinct, or extirpated species.

The Sacramento River Conservation Area Forum brings communities, individuals, organizations and agencies together along the Sacramento River from Keswick to Verona to make resource management and restoration efforts more effective and sensitive to the needs of local communities. The Forum supports restoration done well, and serves as a forum for sharing, a facilitator of solutions, and a partner for projects that protect both the natural values of the Sacramento River and the communities it runs through.
 
 
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