The Sacramento River ( es, Río Sacramento) is the principal river of
Northern California
Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...
in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the
Klamath Mountains
The Klamath Mountains are a rugged and lightly populated mountain range in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon in the western United States. As a mountain system within both the greater Pacific Coast Ranges and the California Coast ...
, the river flows south for before reaching the
Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta
The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, or California Delta, is an expansive inland river delta and estuary in Northern California. The Delta is formed at the western edge of the Central Valley by the confluence of the Sacramento and San ...
and
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, California, San Jose, and Oakland, Ca ...
. The river drains about in 19 California counties, mostly within the fertile agricultural region bounded by the
Coast Ranges and
Sierra Nevada
The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...
known as the
Sacramento Valley, but also extending as far as the volcanic plateaus of Northeastern California. Historically, its watershed has reached as far north as south-central
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...
where the now, primarily,
endorheic
An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...
(closed)
Goose Lake rarely experiences southerly outflow into the
Pit River, the most northerly tributary of the Sacramento.
The Sacramento and its wide natural
floodplain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...
were once abundant in fish and other aquatic creatures, notably one of the southernmost large runs of
chinook salmon
The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus '' Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ...
in North America. For about 12,000 years, humans have depended on the vast natural resources of the watershed, which had one of the densest Native American populations in California. The river has provided a route for trade and travel since ancient times. Hundreds of tribes sharing regional customs and traditions inhabited the Sacramento Valley, first coming into contact with European explorers in the late 1700s. The Spanish explorer
Gabriel Moraga named the river ''Rio de los Sacramentos'' in 1808, later shortened and anglicized into ''Sacramento''.
In the 19th century, gold was discovered on a tributary of the Sacramento River, starting the
California Gold Rush and an enormous population influx to the state. Overland trails such as the
California Trail
The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail f ...
and
Siskiyou Trail guided hundreds of thousands of people to the gold fields. By the late part of the century mining had ceased to be a major part of the economy, and many immigrants turned to farming and ranching. Many populous communities were established along the Sacramento River, including the state capital of
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
. Intensive agriculture and mining contributed to pollution in the Sacramento River, and significant changes to the river's hydrology and environment.
Since the 1950s the watershed has been intensely developed for water supply and the generation of
hydroelectric power
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined a ...
. Today, large dams impound the river and almost all of its major tributaries. The Sacramento River is used heavily for irrigation and serves much of Central and Southern California through the canals of giant state and federal water projects. While it's now providing water to over half of California's population and supporting the most productive agricultural area in the nation, these changes have left the Sacramento greatly modified from its natural state and have caused the decline of its once-abundant fisheries.
Course
Upper river
The Sacramento River originates in the mountains and plateaus of far northern California as three major waterways that flow into
Shasta Lake: the Upper Sacramento River,
McCloud River and
Pit River. The Upper Sacramento begins near
Mount Shasta, at the confluence of North, Middle and South Forks in the
Trinity Mountains
The Trinity Mountains are a subrange of the Klamath Mountains, one of the ranges within the California Coast Ranges and part the greater Pacific Coast Ranges, the coastal mountain system extending from Mexico to Alaska. The Trinity Mountains subra ...
of
Siskiyou County. It flows east into a small reservoir,
, before turning south. The river flows through a canyon for about , past
Dunsmuir Dunsmuir may refer to:
* Dunsmuir, California, a city in the northern part of the state
* Dunsmuir station, an Amtrak station in Dunsmuir, California
* Dunsmuir station (British Columbia), a Via Rail station
* Dola Dunsmuir, Canadian socialite
* Jam ...
and
Castella, before emptying into Shasta Lake near
Lakehead in
Shasta County. The McCloud River rises on the east slope of Mount Shasta and flows south for through the southern
Cascade Range, roughly parallel to the Upper Sacramento, eventually to reach the McCloud Arm of Shasta Lake.
The Pit River, by far the largest of the three, begins in
Modoc County in the northeastern corner of California. Draining a vast and remote volcanic highlands area, it flows southwest for nearly before emptying into Shasta Lake near
Montgomery Creek.
Goose Lake, straddling the
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...
–California border, occasionally overflows into the Pit River during wet years, although this has not happened since 1881. The Goose Lake watershed is the only part of the Sacramento River basin extending into another state.
Unlike most California rivers, the Pit and the McCloud Rivers are predominantly spring-fed, ensuring a large and consistent flow in even the driest of summers.
At the lower end of Shasta Lake is
Shasta Dam, which impounds the Sacramento River for flood control, irrigation and hydropower generation. Before the construction of Shasta Dam, the McCloud River emptied into the Pit River, which joined the Sacramento near the former mining town of
Kennett, submerged when Shasta Lake was filled. The
Pit River Bridge
The Pit River Bridge (officially the Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Bridge) is a double deck, deck truss, road and rail bridge over Shasta Lake in Shasta County, California. The bridge, carrying Interstate 5 on its upper deck and Union Pa ...
, which carries
Interstate 5
Interstate 5 (I-5) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the West Coast of the United States, running largely parallel to the Pacific coast of the contiguous U.S. from Mexico to Canada. It travels through the states of Calif ...
and the
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pac ...
over the reservoir, is structurally the highest double-decked bridge in the United States (although most of the bridge piers are submerged under Shasta Lake when the reservoir is full). The Upper Sacramento River canyon also provides the route for I-5 and the railroad between Lakehead and Mount Shasta.
Sacramento Valley
Below Shasta Dam the Sacramento River enters the
foothills
Foothills or piedmont are geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range, higher hill range or an upland area. They are a transition zone between plains and low relief hills and the adjacent topographi ...
region of the northern Sacramento Valley. It flows through
Keswick Dam, where it receives about of water per year diverted from the
Trinity River. It then swings east through
Redding, the largest city of the
Shasta Cascade region, and turns southeast, entering
Tehama County. East of
Cottonwood it receives
Cottonwood Creek – the largest undammed tributary – from the west, then
Battle Creek
Battle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle Creek, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which encom ...
a short distance downstream. Below Battle Creek it carves its last gorge, Iron Canyon, emerging from the hills at
Red Bluff, where a pumping station (which replaced the
Red Bluff Diversion Dam) removes water for irrigation. Beyond Red Bluff the river reaches the low
floodplain
A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...
of the Sacramento Valley, receiving
Mill Creek from the east and
Thomes Creek
Thomes Creek is a major watercourse on the west side of the Sacramento Valley in Northern California. The creek originates in the Coast Ranges and flows east for about to join the Sacramento River, at a point about northeast of Corning in Te ...
from the west near
Los Molinos, then
Deer Creek from the east near
Vina.
Southeast of
Corning, the Sacramento forms the boundary of Tehama County to the west and
Butte County to the east. A few miles downstream it forms the border of Butte County and
Glenn County
Glenn County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,917. The county seat is Willows. It is located in the Sacramento Valley, in the northern part of the California Central Valley. ...
to the west.
Stony Creek Stony Creek may refer to the following waterways or communities:
Waterways Australia
* Stony Creek, a tributary of the Allyn River, in the Hunter region of New South Wales
* Stony Creek, a tributary of the Brogo River, in the South Coast region o ...
joins from the west in Glenn County, near
Hamilton City and about west of
Chico
Chico () means ''small'', ''boy'' or ''child'' in the Spanish language. It is also the nickname for Francisco in the Portuguese language ().
Chico may refer to:
Places
*Chico, California, a city
*Chico, Montana, an unincorporated community
*Chic ...
. The river then forms the Glenn–
Colusa County line for a short distance before crossing entirely into Colusa County. It passes by the
Sutter Buttes, a group of volcanic hills that rise abruptly from the middle of the Sacramento Valley, where it receives
Butte Creek from the east at
Colusa. Below Colusa the river flows south-southeast, forming the border of Colusa County and
Sutter County to the east.
About further downstream, the Sacramento River reaches the Tisdale Weir. During floods, water overtops the weir and flows east into the
Sutter Bypass
The Sutter Basin is a area of the Sacramento Valley in the U.S. state of California, and is part of the Feather River drainage basin. The basin includes the Sutter Basin Fire Protection District of ~ and uses irrigation from the Thermalito Afterb ...
, the first of two major bypass channels that temporarily store and move floodwaters downstream to reduce pressure on the main channel of the Sacramento. The Sacramento River and the Sutter Bypass flow parallel for over , rejoining on the border of Sutter County and
Yolo County near
Knights Landing
Knights Landing (formerly, Baltimore and East Grafton) is a census-designated place in Yolo County, California, United States, founded by William Knight. It is located on the Sacramento River around 25 miles northwest of Sacramento in the northeas ...
. The
Feather River, the largest tributary of the Sacramento, joins from the east at
Verona
Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...
directly below the Sutter Bypass. A second flood control structure, the Fremont Weir, diverts flood waters from both the Sacramento and Feather Rivers into the
Yolo Bypass, which parallels the Sacramento River down the west side of the valley.
Cache Creek and
Putah Creek, two major tributaries which formerly joined the Sacramento River from the west, are now intercepted by the Yolo Bypass via man-made channels.
The main channel of the Sacramento flows south, forming the Yolo–
Sacramento County
Sacramento County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,585,055. Its county seat is Sacramento, which has been the state capital of California since 1854.
Sacramento County is t ...
line.
Lower river
As the river continues south it approaches the Sacramento metro area, the largest population center in the watershed.
Sacramento International Airport is located on the east bank of the river near
Fremont. Near downtown Sacramento it receives the
American River
, name_etymology =
, image = American River CA.jpg
, image_size = 300
, image_caption = The American River at Folsom
, map = Americanrivermap.png
, map_size = 300
, map_caption ...
from the east, then passes under the historic
Tower Bridge
Tower Bridge is a Grade I listed combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones and engineered by John Wolfe Barry with the help of Henry Marc Brunel. It crosses the River Thames close ...
and
Interstate 80 Business. The
California State Capitol sits less than half a mile (0.8 km) east of the river where the Tower Bridge crosses it. Shortly downstream, the
Port of Sacramento
The Port of Sacramento, now known as the Port of West Sacramento, is an inland port in West Sacramento, California, in the Sacramento metropolitan area. It is northeast of San Francisco, and is centered in the California Central Valley, one of t ...
is located on the west side of the Sacramento, connected to the river by a lock. The
Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel
The Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel (also known as Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel or SRDWSC) is a canal from the Port of Sacramento in West Sacramento, California, to the Sacramento River, which flows into San Francisco Bay. It ...
provides access to the port from the Pacific, bypassing about of the winding lower Sacramento. The channel runs parallel to the Sacramento several miles to the west, and also forms the eastern boundary of the
Yolo Bypass.
The manually operated Sacramento Weir, located across from downtown Sacramento on the west side of the river, serves to relieve floodwater pressure from the American River by allowing it to drain west into the
Yolo Bypass instead of continuing down the Sacramento River.
Downstream of Sacramento, the river enters the
Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta
The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, or California Delta, is an expansive inland river delta and estuary in Northern California. The Delta is formed at the western edge of the Central Valley by the confluence of the Sacramento and San ...
, a vast tidal
estuary
An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...
and
inverted river delta of over which receives the entire run-off of the Central Valley, a region covering a third of California. The Sacramento is by far the largest contributor of fresh water to the Delta; in an average year, it accounts for more than 80 percent of the fresh water inflow. At
Walnut Grove, the manmade
Delta Cross Channel connects the Sacramento to the
Mokelumne River channel, allowing a portion of the water to be pumped south toward
Clifton Court Forebay, the receiving reservoir for the main CVP and
State Water Project
The California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP, is a state water management project in the U.S. state of California under the supervision of the California Department of Water Resources. The SWP is one of the largest public water ...
aqueducts which irrigate millions of acres and supply water to over 23 million people in the
San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...
, the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...
and
Greater Los Angeles
Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino ...
. Although river levels are tidally influenced here and occasionally as far north as Verona, the water stays fresh in all but the driest years.
Saltwater intrusion from the Pacific Ocean was one of the main reasons for the construction of the federal
Central Valley Project (CVP), whose dams maintain a minimum flow in the Sacramento River to keep seawater at bay.
Below
Rio Vista, the lower Sacramento River is rejoined by the Deep Water Ship Channel and the Yolo Bypass and curves southwest along the base of the
Montezuma Hills, forming the border of
Solano and Sacramento Counties. This part of the river is dredged for navigation by large oceangoing vessels and averages three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km) across. North of
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes (; grc-gre, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου, ''Antiókheia hē epì Oróntou'', Learned ; also Syrian Antioch) grc-koi, Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπὶ Ὀρόντου; or Ἀντιόχεια ἡ ἐπ ...
and
Pittsburg, the Sacramento and
San Joaquin River
The San Joaquin River (; es, Río San Joaquín) is the longest river of Central California. The long river starts in the high Sierra Nevada, and flows through the rich agricultural region of the northern San Joaquin Valley before reaching ...
s join at the head of
Suisun Bay, marking the official end of both rivers. The combined waters flow west through Suisun Bay and the
Carquinez Strait into
San Pablo Bay
San Pablo Bay is a tidal estuary that forms the northern extension of San Francisco Bay in the East Bay and North Bay regions of the San Francisco Bay Area in northern California.
Most of the Bay is shallow; however, there is a deep water c ...
and
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, California, San Jose, and Oakland, Ca ...
, joining the Pacific at the
Golden Gate.
Discharge
Following the
Columbia River, the Sacramento is the largest river by
discharge
Discharge may refer to
Expel or let go
* Discharge, the act of firing a gun
* Discharge, or termination of employment, the end of an employee's duration with an employer
* Military discharge, the release of a member of the armed forces from serv ...
on the Pacific coast of the continental United States. The natural runoff of the river is 22 million acre feet (27 km
3) per year, or about . Before dams were built on its tributaries, the river flooded up to during the rainy season, equal to the flow of the
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it ...
. Late summers of particularly dry years could see flows drop below .
Large volumes of water are withdrawn from the Sacramento River for irrigation, industry and urban supplies. Annual depletions (water not returned to the river after use) are about 4.72 million acre feet (5.83 km
3) for irrigation and for urban use. An additional 7.61 million acre feet (9.39 km
3) is reserved for environmental uses, primarily to maintain a minimum fresh water outflow in the Delta to combat salinity.
The
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has
stream gauges on 25 locations along the Sacramento River, although not all of them are currently operational. The ones currently in operation are at Delta, California (near the source at Mount Shasta), at
Keswick (near Redding),
Colusa (about halfway down the river),
Verona
Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...
, and
Freeport Freeport, a variant of free port, may refer to:
Places United States
*Freeport, California
*Freeport, Florida
*Freeport, Illinois
*Freeport, Indiana
*Freeport, Iowa
*Freeport, Kansas
*Freeport, Maine, a New England town
**Freeport (CDP), Maine, the ...
. The Freeport gauge, which sits just downstream of Sacramento, provides a relatively good metric of the annual outflow from the Sacramento River Basin. The average flow between 1949 and 2013 was . The maximum recorded flow was on February 19, 1986; the lowest was on October 15, 1977.
Flow in the
Yolo Bypass, a relief channel designed to carry a portion of the flood waters in order to protect the Sacramento area, is not measured by the Freeport gauge. A separate gauge on the bypass recorded an average throughput of between 1939 and 2013, mostly from December–March. The highest recorded flow was on February 20, 1986. During the dry season of July through September, the bypass carries low to zero flow.
Although the Sacramento River nominally begins near Mount Shasta, the true hydrological source of the Sacramento River system is the Pit River, which is by far the largest of the three rivers flowing into Shasta Lake. At the USGS Montgomery Creek gauge, the average flow of the Pit River was for the period 1966–2013.
By comparison, the Sacramento River at Delta gauge, a few miles above Shasta Lake, recorded an average of for the period 1945–2013.
The McCloud River had an average discharge of for the 1967–2013 period.
Since the 1960s, the McCloud River flow has been reduced and the Pit River flow increased due to diversion of water for hydropower generation; however the total volume of water entering Shasta Lake remains the same.
Before Shasta Dam was built, the volcanic springs feeding the Pit and McCloud Rivers provided the majority of river flow in dry summers when the Upper Sacramento and other tributaries slowed to a trickle.
Monthly combined discharge of Sacramento River at
Freeport Freeport, a variant of free port, may refer to:
Places United States
*Freeport, California
*Freeport, Florida
*Freeport, Illinois
*Freeport, Indiana
*Freeport, Iowa
*Freeport, Kansas
*Freeport, Maine, a New England town
**Freeport (CDP), Maine, the ...
and Yolo Bypass near
Woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...
(cfs)
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Watershed
The Sacramento River's watershed is the largest entirely in California, covering much of the northern part of the state. The
endorheic
An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...
(closed)
Goose Lake drainage basin in southern
Oregon
Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...
, however, has been known to overflow into the Sacramento River system during particularly wet years. The Sacramento River basin generally lies between the Sierra Nevada and
Cascade Range on the east and the Coast Ranges and Klamath Mountains in the west, although the part of the basin drained by the
Pit River extends east of the Cascades.
The Pit River, has the distinction of being one of three rivers that cut through the main crest of the Cascades; its headwaters rise on the western extreme of the
Basin and Range Province
The Basin and Range Province is a vast physiographic region covering much of the inland Western United States and northwestern Mexico. It is defined by unique basin and range topography, characterized by abrupt changes in elevation, alternatin ...
, east of major Cascade volcanoes such as Mount Shasta and
Lassen Peak. The other two are the
Klamath River
The Klamath River (Karuk: ''Ishkêesh'', Klamath: ''Koke'', Yurok: ''Hehlkeek 'We-Roy'') flows through Oregon and northern California in the United States, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. By average discharge, the Klamath is the second larges ...
and
Columbia River.
By discharge, it is the second-largest
contiguous U.S. river draining into the Pacific, after only the Columbia River, which has almost ten times the flow of the Sacramento. The
Colorado River
The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...
, which reaches the
Gulf of California
The Gulf of California ( es, Golfo de California), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Bermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja C ...
just south of the
US-Mexico border near the southeast part of the state, is far larger than the Sacramento in terms of length and drainage area but has a slightly smaller flow. The Sacramento, when combined with the Pit, is also one of the longest rivers in the United States entirely within one state—after
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S ...
's
Kuskokwim and
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
'
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the ...
.
The major drainage basins bordering that of the Sacramento are that of the Klamath in the north, the San Joaquin and
Mokelumne to the south and the
Eel River in the west. The
Russian River also lies to the west and the endorheic (closed)
Honey Lake and
Eagle Lake basins to the north. On the east side are many endorheic watersheds of the
Great Basin including the
Truckee River
The Truckee River is a river in the U.S. states of California and Nevada. The river flows northeasterly and is long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed October 20, 2012 Th ...
and
Carson River
The Carson River is a northwestern Nevada river that empties into the Carson Sink, an endorheic basin. The main stem of the river is long although the addition of the East Fork makes the total length , traversing five counties: Alpine County ...
. Parts of the Sacramento watershed come very close to, but do not extend past, the border of California and
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...
.
Physiography
The basin's diverse geography ranges from the glacier-carved, snowcapped peaks of the Sierra Nevada to the sea-level (and often lower) marshes and farmlands of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The highest point is at
Mount Shasta, a dormant
stratovolcano
A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with a summit crater and p ...
near the headwaters of the Sacramento River. The Sierra Nevada peaks generally decrease in height from south to north—from over in the headwaters of the American River near
Lake Tahoe
Lake Tahoe (; was, Dáʔaw, meaning "the lake") is a freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at , it straddles the state line between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake ...
, to in Lassen County where they adjoin the Cascade Range. On the west side, the Coast Ranges are the opposite, increasing in height to almost in the north. The arid volcanic plateaus in the northeast, which are characterized by alternating hills and large sedimentary basins, typically lie at elevations of .
Most of the Sacramento Valley is below in elevation; in its lower course, the Sacramento River drops only about per mile.
Between the
bajadas or alluvial slopes extending from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges, are the low floodplains of the Sacramento River. The river flows at an elevation somewhat higher than the surrounding terrain due to deposits of sediment over millennia that created raised banks (essentially natural
levee
A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually earthen and that often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastl ...
s). The banks separate the river from the lowlands to the east and west that once served as vast overflow basins during winter storms, creating large areas of seasonal
wetland
A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...
s. Since the 19th century, artificial levee systems have been constructed to enable farming in the fertile flood plain. Today there are of irrigated farmland in the Sacramento Valley. Due to the reduction of the floodplain area, the speed of flood flow in the Sacramento River has increased, creating a significant hazard for the farms and towns along its course. By the early 20th century engineers had realized not all the floodplains could be safely reclaimed, leading to the intentional creation of flood bypasses where development is limited to annual crops and recreational uses.
Further south, much of the Delta region is actually below sea level: subsidence caused by
wind erosion and
intensive farming
Intensive agriculture, also known as intensive farming (as opposed to extensive farming), conventional, or industrial agriculture, is a type of agriculture, both of crop plants and of animals, with higher levels of input and output per unit of ...
have caused the land in the delta to gradually sink since the late 19th century. Many of the delta islands would be underwater if not for the maintenance of the levees and pumps that keep them dry. Some of the "islands" are now up to below the adjacent channels and sloughs.
Land use
The Sacramento River watershed is home to about 2.8 million people; more than two-thirds live within the
Sacramento metropolitan area
The Greater Sacramento area refers to a metropolitan region in Northern California comprising either the U.S. Census Bureau defined Sacramento–Roseville–Arden-Arcade metropolitan statistical area or the larger Sacramento–Roseville combine ...
.
Other important cities are
Chico
Chico () means ''small'', ''boy'' or ''child'' in the Spanish language. It is also the nickname for Francisco in the Portuguese language ().
Chico may refer to:
Places
*Chico, California, a city
*Chico, Montana, an unincorporated community
*Chic ...
,
Redding,
Davis and
Woodland
A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...
. The Sacramento River watershed covers all or most of
Shasta,
Tehama,
Glenn,
Butte
__NOTOC__
In geomorphology, a butte () is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and table (landform), tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from a F ...
,
Plumas,
Yuba,
Sutter,
Lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much lar ...
and
Yolo Counties. It also extends into portions of
Siskiyou,
Modoc,
Lassen
Lassen is a Danish and Norwegian patronymic surname meaning "son of Lars" (equivalent of Laurentius), and thus a parallel form of the more common surname Larsen. Notable people with the surname include:
* Anders Lassen (1920–1945), a Danish reci ...
,
Lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much lar ...
(in Oregon),
Sierra
Sierra (Spanish for "mountain range" and "saw", from Latin '' serra'') may refer to the following:
Places Mountains and mountain ranges
* Sierra de Juárez, a mountain range in Baja California, Mexico
* Sierra de las Nieves, a mountain range i ...
,
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...
,
Placer,
El Dorado
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden"), originally ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or kin ...
,
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
,
Solano and
Contra Costa Counties. The river itself flows through Siskiyou, Shasta, Tehama, Butte, Glenn, Colusa, Sutter, Yolo, Sacramento, Solano and Contra Costa, often forming boundaries between the counties.
Many of the mountainous regions of the watershed are administered by the
U.S. Forest Service. The Sacramento River watershed includes large areas of coniferous forests in the
Mendocino and
Trinity National Forest Trinity National Forest was established as the Trinity Forest Reserve by the U.S. Forest Service in California on April 26, 1905 with . It became a National Forest on March 4, 1907. On July 1, 1908 it gave up some acreage to California National Fo ...
s in the Coast Ranges,
Shasta and
Lassen National Forests in the southern Cascades and the
Plumas,
Tahoe and
Eldorado National Forest
Eldorado National Forest is a U.S. National Forest located in the central Sierra Nevada mountain range, in eastern California.
Geography
Most of the forest (72.8%) lies in El Dorado County. In descending order of land area the others counties ...
s on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The watershed also has
Lassen Volcanic National Park, which covers centered on Lassen Peak, the southernmost Cascade volcano.
Whiskeytown-Shasta-Trinity National Recreation Area, which is over in size, straddles much of the upper Sacramento and
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the ...
Rivers, and is named for the three local reservoirs (Shasta Lake,
Trinity Lake and
Whiskeytown Lake) which are popular tourist areas. Many other state parks and recreation areas lie within the watershed.
Geology
By geologic standards, the Sacramento is a fairly young river; the borders of its watershed began to form only a few million years ago as magma welling up below the Earth's crust pushed up by the
Pacific Plate
The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At , it is the largest tectonic plate.
The plate first came into existence 190 million years ago, at the triple junction between the Farallon, Phoenix, and I ...
colliding with the
North American Plate caused the formation of the
Sierra Nevada
The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...
. Although mountains had existed as early as 100 million years ago in this region (before then the land was probably submerged under the Pacific), they were worn by
erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is di ...
, and the present-day range only formed about 4 million years ago. The northern part of the Sacramento watershed is more ancient, and was formed by intense volcanic activity over 25 million years ago, resulting in lava flows that covered and created the Modoc Plateau, through which the Pit River flows. Mount Shasta and Lassen Peak are among the numerous
Cascade Range volcanoes that still stand in the area.
As the Sierra rose, water erosion and glaciation carved deep canyons, depositing massive amounts of sediment to form a coastal plain between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean. About 3 million years ago, multiple
terranes were formed and smashed into the North American Plate from the Pacific Plate, causing the uplift of the
California Coast Ranges, enclosing the Sacramento Valley and forcing the streams within to flow south instead of west, forming the ancestral Sacramento River. (The
Klamath Mountains
The Klamath Mountains are a rugged and lightly populated mountain range in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon in the western United States. As a mountain system within both the greater Pacific Coast Ranges and the California Coast ...
, which enclose the northwest part of the Sacramento Basin, were formed in the same way but are much older, dating back 7.5 million years.) It is possible that the river once had its outlet in
Monterey Bay
Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica ...
, and may have played a part in the formation of the
Monterey Submarine Canyon when sea levels were lower during the Ice Ages.
The Monterey Bay outlet of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers was blocked off by uplift about 2 million years ago, and runoff from the Sierra began to transform the Central Valley into a gigantic lake, called
Lake Clyde
Lake Corcoran (also known as Lake Clyde, after Clyde Wahrhaftig, an American geophysicist) is an ancient lake that covered the Central Valley of California.
The lake existed in the valleys of the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River, at ...
. This lake stretched north to south and was at least deep. About 650,000 years ago the lake catastrophically overflowed, draining into San Francisco Bay and creating the
Carquinez Strait, the only major break for hundreds of miles in the Coast Ranges. The narrow outlet trapped some of the sediments of the rivers in the Central Valley, forming the inland
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Since then, this inland sea has periodically reformed during times of intense flooding, the most recent being the
Great Flood of 1862. Dams, levees and floodways constructed during the 20th century have thus far prevented this phenomenon from re-occurring.
History
Native Americans
The Sacramento River and its valley were one of the major Native American population centers of California. The river's abundant flow and the valley's fertile soil and mild climate provided enough resources for hundreds of groups to share the land. Most of the villages were small. Although it was once commonly believed that the original natives lived as
tribe
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confl ...
s, they actually lived as
bands, family groups as small as twenty to thirty people. The Sacramento Valley was first settled by humans about 12,000 years ago, but permanent villages were not established until about 8,000 years ago. Historians have organized the numerous separate original native groups into several "tribes". These are known as the
Shasta,
Modoc, and
Achomawi
Achomawi (also Achumawi, Ajumawi and Ahjumawi), are the northerly nine (out of eleven) bands of the Pit River tribe of Palaihnihan Native Americans who live in what is now northeastern California in the United States. These 5 autonomous ban ...
/Pit River Tribes of the volcanic plateaus in the north; the
Wintu
The Wintu (also Northern Wintun) are Native Americans who live in what is now Northern California. They are part of a loose association of peoples known collectively as the Wintun (or Wintuan). Others are the Nomlaki and the Patwin. The Wi ...
and
Hupa in the northern Klamath and Trinity mountains; the
Nomlaki,
Yuki,
Patwin, and
Pomo of the Coast Ranges; the
Yana,
Atsugewi,
Maidu
The Maidu are a Native American people of northern California. They reside in the central Sierra Nevada, in the watershed area of the Feather and American rivers. They also reside in Humbug Valley. In Maiduan languages, ''Maidu'' means "man." ...
,
Konkow, and
Nisenan
The Nisenan are a group of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans and an Indigenous people of California from the Yuba River and American River watersheds in Northern California and the California Central Valley. The Nisenan peopl ...
in the Sierra and their western foothills; and the
Miwok
The Miwok (also spelled Miwuk, Mi-Wuk, or Me-Wuk) are members of four linguistically related Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok languages in the Utian family. The word ...
in the south.
Most of the Sacramento Valley's native peoples relied on hunting, gathering and fishing, although agriculture was practiced in a few areas. Settlement size ranged from small camps to villages of 30–50 permanent structures.
Acorn
The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera '' Quercus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally
two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and bo ...
s were a
staple food
A staple food, food staple, or simply a staple, is a food that is eaten often and in such quantities that it constitutes a dominant portion of a standard Diet (nutrition), diet for a given person or group of people, supplying a large fraction of ...
, and the Sacramento Valley's riparian zones, which supported seven species of native oaks, provided these in abundance. Native Americans pounded the acorns into flour, which they used to make bread and cakes. Abundant salmon and steelhead runs in the Sacramento River and its tributaries were harvested using fishing weirs, platforms, baskets and nets. The river also provided shellfish, sturgeon, eel and suckerfish
They also hunted waterfowl, antelope and deer which all existed in huge numbers in the rich valley bottom and marsh lands.
Before European contact, the indigenous population of the Sacramento Valley has been estimated at 76,000 people.
European exploration and settlement
The first outsiders to see the river were probably the members of a
Spanish colonial-exploratory venture to Northern California in 1772, led by Captain
Pedro Fages
Pedro Fages (1734–1794) was a Spanish soldier, explorer, first Lieutenant Governor of the Californias under Gaspar de Portolá. Fages claimed the governorship after Portolá's death, acting as governor in opposition to the official governo ...
. The group ascended a mountain, likely in the hills north of
Suisun Bay, and found themselves looking down at the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. However, due to their vantage point, neither Fages nor any of his men saw the Sacramento clearly. They assumed that the San Joaquin, coming from the south, was the largest of the merging rivers they saw. In 1808, explorer
Gabriel Moraga, on a journey to find suitable sites for the construction of missions, became the first foreigner to see the river clearly. Judging its huge breadth and power he named it ''Rio de los Sacramentos'', or "River of the
Blessed Sacrament
The Blessed Sacrament, also Most Blessed Sacrament, is a devotional name to refer to the body and blood of Christ in the form of consecrated sacramental bread and wine at a celebration of the Eucharist. The term is used in the Latin Church of the ...
". In the following years, two more Spanish expeditions traversed the lower part of the river, the last one in 1817.
The next visitors were
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trade, fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake b ...
(HBC)
fur trappers exploring southwards from the disputed
Oregon Country
Oregon Country was a large region of the Pacific Northwest of North America that was subject to a long dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States in the early 19th century. The area, which had been created by the Treaty of 1818, c ...
, starting in the 1820s. The first organized expedition, led by
Peter Skene Ogden, arrived in the area of
Mount Shasta in 1826.
By this time, California was under the control of
Mexico
Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...
, although few Mexican settlers had come to what would later become the state, mostly settling in the small ''pueblos'' and ''ranchos'' along the south and central coast. The HBC
mountain men created the
Siskiyou Trail out of several Native American paths that ran through the mountains between Oregon's
Willamette Valley
The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the east ...
and the northern part of the Sacramento Valley. In the years to come, this path, which eventually extended from San Francisco to
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...
following parts of the Sacramento,
Willamette,
Klamath Klamath may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Klamath people, a Native American people of California and Oregon
**Klamath Tribes, a federally recognized group of tribes in Oregon
* Klamath language, spoken by the Klamath people
Places in the United States ...
,
Rogue
A rogue is a person or entity that flouts accepted norms of behavior.
Rogue or rogues may also refer to:
Companies
* Rogue Ales, a microbrewery in Newport, Oregon
* Rogue Arts, a film production company
* Rogue Entertainment, a software com ...
, and other rivers would become an important trade and travel route.
Gold Rush
Although just one of thousands of American emigrants that poured into California over the next few years when California became part of the United States,
John Augustus Sutter's arrival marked a turning point in the history of the Sacramento Valley, and California as a whole. In 1841, Sutter and his men built a fortress at the confluence of the Sacramento and
American River
, name_etymology =
, image = American River CA.jpg
, image_size = 300
, image_caption = The American River at Folsom
, map = Americanrivermap.png
, map_size = 300
, map_caption ...
s and the Mexican government granted him almost of land surrounding the two rivers. Naming it New Helvetia, he created an agricultural empire in the lower Sacramento Valley, attracting several hundred settlers to the area, and relied on Native American labor to maintain his domain. Sutter had something of a two-faced relationship with the many Native American groups in the area. He was friendly with some of the tribes, and paid their leaders handsomely for supplying workers, but others he seized by force to labor in the fields.
After the
Bear Flag Revolt
The California Republic ( es, La República de California), or Bear Flag Republic, was an List of historical unrecognized states#Americas, unrecognized breakaway state from Second Federal Republic of Mexico, Mexico, that for 25 days in 1846 ...
of 1846 and the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Second Federal Republic of Mexico, Mexico f ...
, in which California became part of the United States, Sutter and other large landholders in California held on to their properties. In 1848 Sutter assigned
James W. Marshall to build a sawmill on the South Fork American River at
Coloma, where Marshall discovered gold. Although Sutter and Marshall originally intended to keep the find a secret, news soon broke attracting three hundred thousand hopefuls from all over North America, and even the world, to the Sacramento River in search of fortunes, kicking off the
California Gold Rush. People flocked to the region by the
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kans ...
-Siskiyou Trail,
California Trail
The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail f ...
,
Southern Emigrant Trail
:''The Southern Emigrant Trail should not be confused with the Applegate Trail, which is part of the Northern Emigrant Trails.''
Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, Southern Trail and the Butterfield Stage ...
and various land and/or sea routes through the
Isthmus of Panama
The Isthmus of Panama ( es, Istmo de Panamá), also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien (), is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country ...
and around southern
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...
by ship. Steamboats traveled up and down the Sacramento River carrying miners from San Francisco to the gold fields.
As the miners expanded their diggings deeper into the Sierra Nevada and Klamath Mountains, Native Americans were pushed off their land and a long series of skirmishes and fights began that continued until intervention by the state and national governments.
Post-Gold Rush development and effects
The influx of migrants brought foreign diseases like
malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or deat ...
and
smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) ce ...
, which American Indians had no immunity to. These diseases killed off a large proportion of their population within a few decades of the arrival of Sutter and the following settlers, the start of the
gold rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...
, not to mention the numerous battles fought between the settlers and native bands as well as the forced relocation of some of the tribes to
Indian reservations in several places scattered around the Sacramento Valley, mainly in the Coast Ranges. In the early 1850s, several treaties were signed between the U.S. government and the Native Americans involving their relocation onto a reservation in the Sierra foothills; this promise was broken. Therefore, in 1863, the tribes from the area surrounding the middle Sacramento and
Feather rivers, the Konkow group, were removed and marched forcibly to the
Round Valley Indian Reservation
Round or rounds may refer to:
Mathematics and science
* The contour of a closed curve or surface with no sharp corners, such as an ellipse, circle, rounded rectangle, cant, or sphere
* Rounding, the shortening of a number to reduce the numbe ...
near the
Eel River. A total of 461 people were forced from their homes, but only 277 made it to the reservation; the others perished of disease, starvation or exhaustion.
As mining developed from simple methods such as panning and sluicing to a new form of commercialized extraction,
hydraulic mining, profits from the petering gold rush made a second leap, earning more profits than placer miners in the early years had ever made. The city of
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
, founded on the original site of Sutter's fort, began to flourish as the center of an agricultural empire that provided food to feed the thousands of miners working in the hills as well as a place of financial exchange of all the gold that was mined. Sacramento was officially established in 1850 and was recognized as the state capital in 1854. As the economy of the Sacramento Valley grew, the
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was ...
established tracks along the river to connect California with Oregon following the ancient path of the Siskiyou Trail, in the 1880s and 1890s. Many parts of the railroad were treacherous, especially in the mountainous areas north of
Dunsmuir Dunsmuir may refer to:
* Dunsmuir, California, a city in the northern part of the state
* Dunsmuir station, an Amtrak station in Dunsmuir, California
* Dunsmuir station (British Columbia), a Via Rail station
* Dola Dunsmuir, Canadian socialite
* Jam ...
.
It was not long after Sacramento surpassed a population of 10,000, then the
Great Flood of 1862 swept away much of it (and almost everything else along the Sacramento River) and put the rest under water. The flood waters were exacerbated by the sediments washed down by the millions of tons by hydraulic mining, which filled the beds of the Sacramento, Feather and American rivers up to in Sacramento and also covered thousands of acres of Central Valley lands.
A flood in 1875 covered the city of
Marysville and when it subsided the town's streets were filled with debris and rocks washed down from the "hydraulicking" going on upstream.
Repeated floods and increased demand for Sacramento River water saw a plethora of massive changes to the environment beginning in the 20th century. An early project was undertaken to raise the entire city of Sacramento about above its original elevation.
This was followed by much bigger engineering projects to control and store the floodwaters of the Sacramento River; the building of these public works would radically transform the river during the 20th century.
Dams and water use
From the late 19th century through the 20th century, California experienced an economic boom that led to the rapid expansion of both agriculture and urban areas. The Central Valley was becoming a heavily developed irrigation farming region, and cities along the state's
Pacific coast
Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean.
Geography Americas
Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western or southwestern border, except for Panama, where the P ...
and the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers were growing rapidly, requiring river control to prevent flooding on the one hand, and to ensure a consistent supply of water on the other. The
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State of California completed reports as early as the 1870s and 1880s which outlined future development of the Sacramento, Feather, Yuba and Bear rivers.
In 1873, Colonel B.S. Alexander of the Army Corps of Engineers surveyed the Central Valley's hydrology and irrigation systems and proposed a great network of pumps and canals that would take water from the Sacramento River in the north, and transport it to drought-prone central and southern California, especially the San Joaquin Valley. The Sacramento River basin receives "two-thirds to three-quarters of northern California's precipitation though it has only one-third to one-quarter of the land. The San Joaquin River watershed occupies two-thirds to three-quarters of northern California's land, but only collects one-third to one-quarter of the precipitation."
The topography of the Sacramento River watershed makes it particularly prone to flooding. Storm water runs quickly off the steep mountains flanking the Sacramento Valley, but with few exceptions the
alluvial
Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Al ...
valley floor is strikingly flat, slowing down the runoff and causing it to overflow the river banks. Before flood control works were built, the winter floods frequently transformed the valley into an inland sea. In 1880 State Engineer William H. Hall developed the first flood control plan for the Sacramento River. Hall recognized that with the combination of flat topography and extremely heavy winter runoff volumes, a system of levees alone could not hope to contain flooding, as had been proven time and again in the flood prone city of Sacramento.
Sacramento River Flood Control Project
The Sacramento River Flood Control Project was authorized by the federal government in 1917. While it intended to contain minor floods in the river banks by strengthening the existing levee system, the main feature was a series of bypasses, or sections of the valley intentionally designed to flood during high water. Weirs placed at strategic points along the Sacramento River release water into the bypasses when the river reaches a certain stage, relieving the pressure of floodwaters on the main channel. The bypasses are then allowed to drain slowly once flood crests have passed. For most of the year, the bypasses remain dry and are used for annual crops such as rice. Some of the principal features are the Butte Basin, Colusa Basin, Sutter Bypass and the Yolo Bypass. The Butte Basin is a large lowland area on the east side of the river between
Hamilton City and
Colusa; the geographically similar Colusa Basin is located to the west. The Sutter Bypass begins at Colusa and runs parallel to the east side of the Sacramento River until reaching the confluence with the
Feather River. The Yolo Bypass, located on the west side of the river, starts at the confluence of the Feather and rejoins the Sacramento in the Delta. Although termed "bypasses", the system essentially reconnects the Sacramento with a portion of its historic flood plain, which it would have naturally flooded had the levee system not been in place.
Central Valley Project
During the
Great Depression in the 1930s, the first concrete proposals for a statewide water engineering project emerged, but when the state government could not sell the necessary bonds to fund the project, the federal government took over. The
Central Valley Project, one of the largest irrigation projects in the world, was constructed by the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...
beginning in 1935.
Ultimately, the system would distribute 7 million acre feet (8.6 km
3) to irrigate 3 million acres (1.2 million ha) of land in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. Construction of Shasta Dam, the principal water storage facility in the Sacramento River system, started in 1938 and was completed in 1945. Controlling runoff from the upper of the Sacramento River watershed, Shasta greatly reduces flood peaks on the middle and lower parts of the Sacramento River. Flood waters are stored for irrigation in dry years as well as navigation and electricity generation. In the following decades, more huge reservoirs – capable of storing a combined of water – were constructed on the Sacramento's main tributaries, enabling the regulation of water for irrigation and hydroelectric power.
Starting in the late 1950s, two major canals were extended to irrigate the western side of the Sacramento Valley – the
Tehama-Colusa and
Corning Canal Corning may refer to:
People
* Corning (surname)
Places
In Canada:
* Corning, Saskatchewan
In the United States of America:
* Corning, Arkansas
* Corning, California
* Corning, Indiana
* Corning, Iowa
* Corning, Kansas
* Corning, Michiga ...
s. Starting at the
Red Bluff Diversion Dam on the Sacramento, the canals are and long respectively, and divert a total of over of water to irrigate some .
State Water Project
In 1960, construction began on the State Water Project, whose primary purpose was to deliver water to Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Oroville Dam
Oroville Dam is an earthfill embankment dam on the Feather River east of the city of Oroville, California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of the Sacramento Valley. At 770 feet (235 m) high, it is the tallest dam in the U.S. and ...
– the tallest dam in the U.S. – was built on the Sacramento's largest tributary, the Feather River. A series of channels were enlarged in the Delta to facilitate water flow from the Sacramento to the
Banks Pumping Plant
The Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant is located southwest of the Clifton Court Forebay and northwest of Tracy, CA. The plant is the first pumping plant for the California Aqueduct and the South Bay Aqueduct. It provides the necessary fluid head ...
and the
California Aqueduct, which can carry as much as 4.2 million acre feet (5 km
3) of water each year. From its origin at the Delta the canal runs southwards through the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, providing irrigation water to farmlands along its length, and lifted almost over the
Tehachapi Mountains via four large pumping stations. The project irrigates of land in the San Joaquin Valley and serves 22 million people in Central and Southern California.
Over the years, several other plans materialized to divert rivers from California's
North Coast into the Sacramento watershed, as future demand was projected to exceed supply. The only one to be built was the
Trinity River Project (which would become part of the CVP), sending over 90 percent of the flow of that river into the Sacramento via a tunnel under the Klamath Mountains. Due to environmental damage and fish kills in the Trinity River, the volume of diverted water has been limited by law since the 1990s. Other, larger projects ultimately failed to take root. One of the most notorious, the
Klamath Diversion, proposed to send the entire flow of the Klamath River into the Sacramento River through a system of large reservoirs, canals, pumping stations and tunnels.
Similarly, the
Dos Rios Dam project would have diverted a considerable portion of the
Eel River to the Sacramento.
Both projects were defeated by local resistance, opposition from environmentalists,
as well as the high capital cost.
Navigation
The
Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel
The Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel (also known as Sacramento River Deep Water Ship Channel or SRDWSC) is a canal from the Port of Sacramento in West Sacramento, California, to the Sacramento River, which flows into San Francisco Bay. It ...
was completed in 1963, and was built to facilitate navigation of large oceangoing ships from the Delta to the port of Sacramento. The channel bypasses the winding lower part of the Sacramento River between the state capital and the Delta thus reducing water travel times. It also serves to discharge floodwaters from the lower end of the
Yolo Bypass. Built by the Army Corps of Engineers, the canal is long and is maintained to a depth of .
Ecology and environmental issues
The Sacramento River and its drainage basin once supported extensive
riparian habitat and
marsh
A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found a ...
es, in both the Sacramento Valley and the Delta, home to a diverse array of flora and fauna. Due to the reclamation of land for agriculture and the regulation of seasonal flooding, the amount of water-based habitat declined greatly during the 20th century. Other human impacts include the heavy water consumption for agriculture and urban areas, and pollution caused by
pesticides
Pesticides are substances that are meant to pest control, control pest (organism), pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microb ...
,
nitrate
Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the chemical formula . Salts containing this ion are called nitrates. Nitrates are common components of fertilizers and explosives. Almost all inorganic nitrates are soluble in water. An example of an insoluble ...
s, mine
tailings
In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction ( gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overl ...
,
acid mine drainage and
urban runoff
Urban runoff is surface runoff of rainwater, landscape irrigation, and car washing created by urbanization. Impervious surfaces (roads, parking lots and sidewalks) are constructed during land development. During rain , storms and other precipi ...
.
The Sacramento supports 40–60 species of fish,
and 218 species of birds. The basin also has a number of
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...
amphibian and fish species. Many Sacramento River fish species are similar to those in the
Snake
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ...
–
Columbia River systems; geologic evidence indicates that the two were connected by a series of wetlands and channels about 4-5 million years ago.
Located along the
Pacific Flyway, the sprawling wetlands of the Sacramento Valley are an important stop for migratory birds; however, only a fraction of the historic wetlands remain. Seasonally flooded rice paddies in the Sacramento Valley comprise a large portion of the habitat currently used by migrating birds. Native bird populations have been declining steadily since the 19th century. Species that were once common but now are endangered or gone include the
southwestern willow flycatcher
The willow flycatcher (''Empidonax traillii'') is a small insect-eating, neotropical migrant bird of the tyrant flycatcher family. There are four subspecies of the willow flycatcher currently recognized, all of which breed in North America (in ...
,
western yellow-billed cuckoo,
least Bell's vireo, and
warbling vireo
The warbling vireo (''Vireo gilvus'') is a small North American songbird.
Its breeding habitat is open deciduous and mixed woods from Alaska to Mexico and the Florida Panhandle. It often nests in widely spaced trees, often cottonwood or aspen, ...
. Another reason for dropping numbers are the introduction of non-native species, such as the parasitic
cowbird, which lays its eggs in the nests of other bird species causing its hatchlings to compete with the others for food.
There were once 9 species of amphibians that used the Sacramento River, but some have become extinct and most other populations are declining due to habitat loss caused by agriculture and urban development. Amphibians originally thrived in the marshes, sloughs, side-channels and
oxbow lakes because of their warmer water, abundance of vegetation and nutrients, lower predator populations and slower current. This population once included several species of frogs and salamanders; the
foothill yellow-legged frog and
western spadefoot are listed as endangered species.
Riparian and wetlands areas along the Sacramento once totaled more than ; today only about remains. Much of this consists of restored stretches and artificially constructed wetlands. Levee construction has prevented the river from changing course during winter and spring floods, which was crucial to the renewal of existing wetlands and the creation of new ones. Since the late 19th century the river has been mostly locked in a fixed channel, which once could shift hundreds of feet or even several miles in a year because of floods. In 2010, about of the river's riparian forests are undergoing active restoration.
UC Davis initiated a project known as The Nigiri Project which takes place under the Yolo Bypass in the rice field floodplains adjacent to the Sacramento River. The name comes from a form of Japanese sushi which contains a slice of fish on top of a compressed wedge of vinegared rice, therefore a relationship with rice and fish. Salmon migrate from the Central Valley rivers to the ocean where they increase in size for one to three years then return to rivers to spawn, if a young fish is more large when they enter the ocean, they will have more of a chance to return for spawning. According to UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences these rice fields adjacent to the Sacramento River will serve as potential nurseries for salmon. UC Davis also concluded from past experimental releases of salmon, that the Yolo Bypass floodway could have up to 57,000 acres of a productive breeding habitat with almost no cost to farmers. The Nigiri project has demonstrated off-season agriculture fields such as the rice fields under the Yolo Bypass next to Sacramento River can serve as an important floodplain habitat and feeding ground for juvenile or endangered fish. UC Davis noted juveniles grew much bigger and faster within the flooded rice fields when compared to those released in the Sacramento River. Public agencies, conservation groups and landowners have all been working together and conducting experiments since 2011. Experiments conducted on rice fields have taken place at the Knaggs Ranch property within the Yolo Bypass by Sacramento River for four consecutive winters. UC Davis shares their results produced the fastest growth of juvenile Chinook salmon in the Central Valley to ever be recorded. The Nigiri project is attempting to see these floodplains as “surrogate wetlands” which can be controlled to copy the Sacramento River system’s annual natural flooding cycle the native fish depend on. Runoff water from agriculture is used to flood the fields for most of this experiment adjacent to the Sacramento River. The recycled water is eventually flushed back into the Delta ecosystem through agricultural canals, meaning no new water is used to perform the experiment.
Anadromous fish
Second only to the Columbia River on the west coast of the United States in
Chinook salmon
The Chinook salmon (''Oncorhynchus tshawytscha'') is the largest and most valuable species of Pacific salmon in North America, as well as the largest in the genus '' Oncorhynchus''. Its common name is derived from the Chinookan peoples. Other ...
runs, the Sacramento and its tributaries once supported a huge population of this fish. Millions of salmon once swam upstream to spawn in the Sacramento; as recently as 2002 eight hundred thousand fish were observed to return to the river.
The Sacramento and San Joaquin River systems are home to the southernmost existing run of chinook salmon in North America.
Starting in the 20th century, dam construction blocked off hundreds of miles of salmon-spawning streams, such as the upper Feather and American Rivers, and the entirety of the Pit and upper Sacramento rivers. Pollution from farms and urban areas took a heavy toll on the river's environment, and heavy irrigation withdrawals sometimes resulted in massive
fish kill
The term fish kill, known also as fish die-off, refers to a localized die-off of fish populations which may also be associated with more generalized mortality of aquatic life.University of Florida. Gainesville, FL (2005) ''Plant Management in Fl ...
s. Since 1960, when the big pumps at the head of the
California Aqueduct in the Delta began their operation, the pattern of water flow in the Delta has been changed considerably leaving the fish confused as to where to go, resulting in many generations dying off because they have not been able to find their way upstream. In 2004, only 200,000 fish were reported to return to the Sacramento; in 2008, a disastrous low of 39,000.
In 1999, five hydroelectric dams on Battle Creek, a major tributary of the Sacramento River, were removed to allow better passage of the fish. Three other dams along the creek were fitted with
fish ladder
A fish ladder, also known as a fishway, fish pass, fish steps, or fish cannon is a structure on or around artificial and natural barriers (such as dams, locks and waterfalls) to facilitate diadromous fishes' natural migration as well as mo ...
s. The river is considered one of the best salmon habitats in the watershed because of its relatively cold water and the availability of ideal habitat such as gravel bars.
By the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the government blamed crashing fish populations on overfishing, especially off the Northern California and Oregon coast, which lie directly adjacent to the migration paths of Sacramento River salmon. This has resulted in a ban on coastal salmon fishing for several years since 2002. The Red Bluff Diversion Dam, although not a large dam and equipped with fish passage facilities, also presents a major barrier. Because of inadequate design, roughly 25–40% of the incoming fish get blocked by the dam each year. The dam has also become a "favorite spot" for predatory fish to congregate, feasting on the salmon that get trapped both above and below the dam. As of 2010, the salmon run has shown slight signs of improvement, probably because of that year's greater precipitation.
In 1995, a gate on the
Folsom Dam on the American River broke open, causing the river's flow to rise by some . The water traveled down the Sacramento and washed into the Pacific; the influx of fresh water was such that it confused thousands of anadromous fish to begin migrating up the river, thinking that the river had risen because of late-autumn storms.
Whales
Marine animals such as
whale
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...
s and
sea lion
Sea lions are pinnipeds characterized by external ear flaps, long foreflippers, the ability to walk on all fours, short and thick hair, and a big chest and belly. Together with the fur seals, they make up the family Otariidae, eared seals. ...
s are occasionally found far inland after navigating the river for food or refuge and then losing track of how to get back to the Pacific Ocean. In October 1985 a humpback whale affectionately named "
Humphrey the humpbacked whale" by television media traveled up the Sacramento River before being rescued. Rescuers downstream broadcast sounds of humpback whales feeding to draw the whale back to the ocean.
On May 14, 2007, onlookers and media spotted
two humpback whales traveling the deep waters near Rio Vista. The duo, generally believed to be mother and calf (Delta, the mother and Dawn, her calf), continued to swim upstream to the
deep water ship channel near
West Sacramento, about inland. There was concern because the whales had been injured, perhaps by a boat's propeller or keel, leaving a gash in each whale's skin. The whales were carefully inspected by biologists and injected with antibiotics to help prevent infection. After days of efforts to lure (or frighten) the whales in the direction of the ocean, the whales eventually made their way south into San Francisco Bay, where they lingered for several days.
By May 30, 2007, the cow and calf apparently slipped out unnoticed under the
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the U.S. city of San Francisco, California—the northern tip of the San Francisco P ...
into the Pacific Ocean, likely under cover of night.
Pollution
For a river of its size, the Sacramento is considered to have fairly clean water. However, pollutants still flow into the river from many of its tributaries and man-made drains or channels.
Pesticide runoff, especially
DDT, is one of the largest problems faced today, because of the valley's primarily agricultural economy. Increased erosion caused by the removal of riparian vegetation and the runoff of
fertilizer
A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
s into the river have led to occasional
algae blooms, though the water is usually cold because of the regulation of dams upstream. Other pollutant sources include
urban runoff
Urban runoff is surface runoff of rainwater, landscape irrigation, and car washing created by urbanization. Impervious surfaces (roads, parking lots and sidewalks) are constructed during land development. During rain , storms and other precipi ...
,
mercury and even rocket fuel that was reported to have leaked near the American River from an
Aerojet extraction project.
Mercury pollution created by mining and processing activities during the California Gold Rush still has a profound impact on the Sacramento River's environment. According to Domagalski of the USGS, Mercury is currently considered the most serious water-quality problem in the Sacramento River. Mercury is unique because it is the heaviest liquid in existence, it is the only heavy metal that is a liquid at room temperature and it readily vaporizes into the atmosphere. The toxic substance was widely used by miners to separate gold from the surrounding rocks and dirt, and was disposed of by allowing it to evaporate. Most of the mercury was mined in the Coast Ranges to the west of the Sacramento River; mines in these mountains produced roughly 140,000 tons of mercury to serve the Gold Rush. When the gold rush ended, most of the mines were closed but toxic acidic water and chemicals continue to leak from within, into west-side Sacramento tributaries such as
Cache Creek and
Putah Creek. According to the Sacramento Watershed River Program, an abandoned mercury mine, which is currently an EPA superfund site, is located in the Cache Creek area in the Sacramento River, called the Sulfur Bank Mercury Mine, which is still releasing mercury with leachate into Clear Lake which is close by. This site along with other former mine sites add to the contamination of Cache Creek which is estimated to be responsible for 50% of mercury taken to the Bay Delta area every year. In the east, mercury that permeated into the ground has contaminated several aquifers that feed rivers such as the Feather, Yuba and American. Even the evaporated mercury posed problems – so much of it was used that significant concentrations still linger in the air in many places. According to Griffin with the Sacramento Water Action Team, Mercury cannot naturally escape or dissipate and will be brought down into the soils and sediment to pollute and react with, in some of these cases methane can be produced from the mercury which will contribute to the greenhouse gases and is another contributing issue with mercury pollution, ecological alteration of the Sacramento River and climate change. Griffin shares, "Mercury and its compounds readily attach to particulate material in soil and sediment. In the presence of living organisms ionic mercury can transform into monomethyl mercury and dimethylmercury. When exposed to sunlight the (di)methylmercury is photodegraded to monomethyl mercury, usually near the surface of water, and methane gas is released”. According to the USGS 2016, the mercury release leaves a permanent imprint not only in the Sacramento River Watershed but also in peat bogs, snowcapped glaciers and sediments up to hundreds and thousands of miles away. Mercury pollution continues today and will probably continue for decades or centuries into the future.
Another form of pollution the Sacramento River is suffering from is
plastic pollution
Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g. plastic bottles, bags and microbeads) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. Plastics that act as pollutants are cate ...
. According to researchers from University of Berkley, they recorded over 7 trillion microplastics are deposited in the San Francisco Bay each year with the Sacramento River being a major contributor. They also found one fourth of microplastics in California’s fish’s stomach’s such as the anchovy, striped bass and salmon.
In July 1991, a train derailed near
Dunsmuir, California alongside the Sacramento River. A tank car split open, spilling about 19,500 gallons of the pesticide
metam sodium into the river. The chemical formed a stinking, bubbling, green glob that moved down the river, killing everything in its path. More than one million fish were killed, including at least 100,000 rainbow trout, and thousands of other aquatic creatures as well as nearby trees. Next, the green glob entered Shasta Lake, California's largest reservoir. Fortunately, a system of aerating pipes at the bottom of the lake had been set up to dissipate the chemical, reducing it to almost nothing by the 29th, preventing further environmental destruction. The tank car carrying the metam sodium through California was of a type that the National Transportation Safety Board said had "a high incidence of failure" in accidents. Furthermore, the tank car was not labeled, so the train's crew was unaware of the danger posed by the chemical.
Diazinon was a major pollution problem in the Sacramento River which would originate from agricultural and urban storm water discharges. Diazinon is used for orchards which grow peaches, plums, and almonds to mitigate the number of insects and pests like spider mites and aphids. A wide variety of organizations and groups came together to reduce diazinon concentrations in the Sacramento and Feather River systems. Their collaboration and hard work led to the removal of 79 river miles from the 303(d) list for diazinon impairments in 2010 according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
See also
*
Auburn Dam
*
Bass Festival
The Bass Festival, also known as Bass Derby, is held during the second weekend of October in Rio Vista, California. It is the celebration of bass coming into the Sacramento River
The Sacramento River ( es, Río Sacramento) is the principal riv ...
*
Blue Tent Creek
*
Delta Dawn
*
List of crossings of the Sacramento River
This is a list of the crossings of the Sacramento River from its mouth at Suisun Bay upstream to the Ribbon Bridge in Redding. There are many more bridges north of this point up to Lake Siskiyou, immediately east of the source of the river at the ...
*
List of rivers of California
*
United States Exploring Expedition
References
Works cited
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Sacramento River realtime flows and forecastsSacramentoRiver.orgSacramento River Watershed Program– Online Video from KVIE Public Television
{{Authority control
*
Sacramento Valley
Rivers of Northern California
Tributaries of San Pablo Bay
Central Valley Project
Geography of the Sacramento Valley
San Francisco Bay watershed
Rivers of Sacramento County, California
Rivers of Contra Costa County, California
Rivers of Solano County, California
Rivers of the San Francisco Bay Area
Rivers of Siskiyou County, California
Rivers of Shasta County, California
Rivers of Tehama County, California
Rivers of Butte County, California
Rivers of Glenn County, California
Rivers of Colusa County, California
Rivers of Sutter County, California
Rivers of Yolo County, California
Geography of the Central Valley (California)
History of Sacramento, California
Mendocino National Forest
Shasta-Trinity National Forest
Geography of Sacramento, California
Rivers with fish ladders