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The Klamath River Basin was once one of the world’s most ecologically magnificent regions, a watershed teeming with salmon, migratory birds and wildlife that thrived alongside Native American communities. The river flowed rapidly from its headwaters in southern Oregon’s high deserts into Upper Klamath Lake, collected snowmelt along a narrow gorge through the Cascades, then raced downhill to the California coast in a misty, redwood-lined finish.

Registration has only been open for a few weeks and the buses are already nearing capacity for our fall tours along the Eastern Sierra and across Northern California! See below for more details and reserve your spot soon for both don’t-miss, firsthand experiences before they’re gone. Plus, mark your calendars now for our Water Summit in Sacramento, the Foundation’s premier annual event.

Mark your calendars for our fall water tours along the Eastern Sierra and across Northern California.

A new underground mapping technology that reveals the best spots for storing surplus water in California’s Central Valley is providing a big boost to the state’s most groundwater-dependent communities.

The maps provided by the California Department of Water Resources for the first time pinpoint paleo valleys and similar prime underground storage zones traditionally found with some guesswork by drilling exploratory wells and other more time-consuming manual methods. The new maps are drawn from data on the composition of underlying rock and soil gathered by low-flying helicopters towing giant magnets.

The unique peeks below ground are saving water agencies’ resources and allowing them to accurately devise ways to capture water from extreme storms and soak or inject the surplus underground for use during the next drought.

“Understanding where you’re putting and taking water from really helps, versus trying to make multimillion-dollar decisions based on a thumb and which way the wind is blowing,” said Aaron Fukuda, general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District, an early adopter of the airborne electromagnetic or AEM technology in California.

Our Headwaters Tour June 21-22 will take you into the Sierra Nevada to explore the impacts of this year’s historically large snowpack, reported at well over 200% of average. Remaining seats are limited so don’t miss your chance to examine water issues happening upstream that have dramatic effects throughout the state.

What exactly is an ‘average’ snowpack and how is it measured? How are those measurements then translated into forecasts of California’s water supply for the year, and is climate change making our reliance on historical patterns as a predictor obsolete? You’ll get an opportunity to learn about these topics directly from experts including Sean de Guzman, manager of the California Department of Water Resources Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting Unit.

The states of the Lower Colorado River Basin have traditionally played an oversized role in tapping the lifeline that supplies 40 million people in the West. California, Nevada and Arizona were quicker to build major canals and dams and negotiated a landmark deal that requires the Upper Basin to send predictable flows through the Grand Canyon, even during dry years.

But with the federal government threatening unprecedented water cuts amid decades of drought and declining reservoirs, the Upper Basin states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico are muscling up to protect their shares of an overallocated river whose average flows in the Upper Basin have already dropped 20 percent over the last century.

They have formed new agencies to better monitor their interests, moved influential Colorado River veterans into top negotiating posts and improved their relationships with Native American tribes that also hold substantial claims to the river.

Don’t miss your chance to go deep into California’s water hub next month with our most popular annual tour, the Bay-Delta Tour May 17-19! Plus, registration is now open for the return of our Headwaters Tour June 21-22, with an optional rafting trip on the American River the day before.

See below for more details on both spring tours.