Funded Research Projects Summary and List:

The CALFED Science Program has been funding scientific research since the first CALFED Science Fellows awards in 2003. Below is a cumulative list of all Science Program PSP and Fellows research projects in chronological order by project start date.

The CALFED Science Program considers funding scientific research to be a critical component in achieving its mission of establishing unbiased and authoritative knowledge directly relevant to CALFED actions. The goal of funding this research is to invest in knowledge that will fundamentally advance the understanding of the complex environments/systems within the CALFED jurisdiction to aid policy-makers and managers.




Science Program Funded Research

Through the Proposal Solicitation Packages (PSP's) research grants and CALFED Science Fellowships, the Science Program has funded over 79 research projects totaling over $24 million; the 2004 and 2006 Focused PSP's and the 2007 Supplemental PSP resulted in a combined funding of 36 proposals for a total of over $18 million while the Science Fellows effort has resulted in a total of 43 fellows projects for a total of over $6 million.

The information from this research has already provided critical information to management on a variety of high priority items including POD, Delta Vision, salmonids, environmental water, restoration, climate change, drinking water quality, etc. Check back regularly for grant updates.

2007 Supplemental PSP
P.I. Lead Institution Funding Title Products
Cloern (Stewart) USGS $166,117 CASCaDE: Computational Assessments of Scenarios of Change for the Delta Ecosystem  
Drexler USGS $283,063 Salinity Fluctuations During the Last 7000 years in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta  
Dugdale / Mueller- Solger San Francisco State University / DWR $338,377 Comparison of Nutrient Sources and Phytoplankton Growth and Species Composition in Two Rivers: Their roles in Determining Productivity and Foodweb Conditions in Suisun Bay and the Delta  
Dunne UC Santa Barbara $150,000 How Abiotic Processes, Biotic Proceses, and Their Interactions Sustain Habitat Characteristics and Functions in River Channels and Their Floodplains: An Investigation of the Response of How a Reach of the Merced Rivers Responds to Restoration  
Hendrix R2 Resource Consultants, Inc $296,442 A Statistical Model of Central Valley Chinook Incorporating Uncertainty  
Ingram UC Berkeley $228,092 The Role of the San Francisco Bay Delta in juvenile Rearing for Winter and Spring Run Chinook Salmon, to be Determined by Otolith Microchemistry  
Kimmerer San Francisco State Univeristy $299,872 Foodweb support for the threatened delta smelt and other estuarine fishes in Suisun Bay and the western Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta  
Klimley UC Davis $256,676 Supplement: Survival and Migratory Patterns of Central Valley Juvenile Salmonids  
Mangel UC Santa Cruz $194,620 Life History Variation in Management: Supplemental Grant Application  


2006 PSP
P.I. Lead Institution Funding Title Products
May UC Davis $430,870 Predicting the Effects of Invasive Hydrozoa (Jellyfish) on Pelagic Organisms Under Changing Salinity and Temperature Regimes  
Parker CSU San Francisco $646,848 Climate Change Impacts to San Francisco Bay-Delta Wetlands: Links to Pelagic Food Webs and Predictive Responses Based on Landscape Modeling  
Kueltz UC Davis $700,000 Quantitative Indicators and Life History Implications of Environmental Stress on Sturgeon  
Dugdale CSU San Francisco $500,000 Do Low Phytoplankton Growth Rates Signal the "Bad" Habitat Conditions in Suisun Bay Driving the Pelagic Organism Decline  
Guerin Contra Costa Water District $116,927 The Consequences of Operational Decisions on Water Quality: Reconciling Delta Smelt, Salmon, and Human Needs  
Stacey UC Berkeley $390,869 A Calibration-Free Approach to Modeling Delta Flows and Transport  
Castillo US Fish and Wildlife Services $670,000 Pilot Mark-Recapture Study to Estimate Delta Smelt Pre-screen Loss and Salvage Efficency  
Stacey UC Berkeley $200,975 The Transport and Dispersion of Rafting Vegetation in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta  
Lehman DWR $150,000 Using FlowCAM Technology to Measure High Frequency Spatial and Temporal Variation in Phytoplankton and Zooplankton Species Composition and Develop State-of-the-Art Plankton Monitoring Programs  
Torres University of South Carolina $790,000 A Non-Point Source of Contaminants to the Estuarine Food Web  
Brandes US Fish and Wildlife Services $483,903 Estimating Juvenile Chinook Salmon Spring and Winter Run Abundance at Chipps Island  
Cloern USGS $299,422 TRoUBLE? Trends of Rising and Unexpected Bloom Levels in the Estuary  
Messer DWR $219,822 Analysis of Archived Samples to Assess Patterns of Historic Invasive Bivalve Biomass  
Messer DWR $395,700 Spatial and Temporal Quantification of Pesticide Loadings to the Sacramento River, San Joaquin River, and Bay-Delta to Guide Risk Assessment for Sensitive Species  


2004 PSP
P.I. Lead Institution Funding Title Products
Sedlak UC Berkeley $ 1,167,149 Identifying Causes of Feminization of Chinook Salmon  
Ingram UC Berkeley $197,689 Chinook salmon rearing in the San Francisco Bay-Delta system: Identification of geochemical markers to determine Delta use  
Mangel UC Santa Cruz $ 1,014,596 Life History Variation in Steelhead Trout and the Implications for Water Mangement  
Klimley UC Davis $ 1,500,000 Survival and Migratory Patterns of Central Valley Juvenile Salmonids  
Kimmerer CSU San Francisco $ 1,170,000 Foodweb Support for the Delta Smelt  
Cloern USGS $ 1,662,870 CASCADE: Computational Assessments of Scenarios of Change for the Delta Ecosystem  
Anke Mueller-Solger DWR $159,158 Phytoplankton communities in the San Francisco Estuary: monitoring and management using a submersible spectrofluorometer  
Kimmerer CSU San Francisco $997,027 Modeling Delta Smelt in SF Estuary  
Dunne UC Santa Barbara $ 1,400,000 How Abiotic Processes, Biotic Processes, and Their Interactions Sustain Habitat Characteristics and Functions in River Channels and their Floodplains: An Investigation of the Response of a Gravel-Bed Reach of the Merced River to Restoration  
Lehman DWR $500,000 Biomass and toxicity of a newly established bloom of the cyanobacteria Microcystis aeruginosa and its potential impact on beneficial use in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta  
Brandes US Fish and Wildlife Services $ 83,100 Review of four juvenile salmon coded wire tag experiments conducted in the Delta  
May UC Davis $143,735 Are "Apparent" Sex Reversed Chinook Salmon A Sympton of Genotoxicity?  
Hendrix UC Davis $679,631 A Statistical Model of Central Valley Chinook Incorprating Uncertainty  


2007 Fellows
P.I. Lead Institution Funding Title Products
Alex Fremier University of Syracuse, NY $228,750 Modeling Physical Drivers and Age Structure of Cottonwood Forest Habitat: An Integrated Systems Approach  
Susanne Brander UC Davis $129,124 Endocrine Disruption in the Delta: Confirming Sites' Known Estrogenicity with Outplants, Histology, and Choriogenin Level Measurements  
Susan Lang Scripps Institution of Oceanography $215,759 Investigating the Lower Trophic Levels of Suisun Bay Food Web: A Biomarker-Specific Isotope Approach  
Lisa Schile UC Berkeley $125,750 Tidal wetland vegetation response to climate change in the San Francisco Bay-Delta  
Sarah Hughes UC Santa Barbara $114,063 Environmental Water: Developing Indicators and Identifying Opportunities  
Heidi Weiskel UC Davis $107,812 Nutrients and Benthic Invasion Dynamics in San Francisco Bay  


2006 Fellows
P.I. Lead Institution Funding Title Products
Sullivan, Lindsay San Francisco State University $152,500 Prey selection of larval and juvenile planktivorous fish in the San Francisco Estuary  
Sardella, Brian UC Davis $139,963 Temperature and salinity effect on the physicology of white sturgeon  
Whitcraft, Christine San Francisco State University $123,285 Role of exotics as ecosystem engineers affecting estuarine food webs in suisun marsh  
Woodley, Christa UC Davis $191,875 The Impacts of global climate change on delta fishes: predicting fish abundance, distribution and community changes  
Schroeter, Robert UC Davis $200,625 Temporal and spatial patterns in abundance and production of pelagic organisms in the low salinity zone (susun marsh, bay and delta) of the S.F. Estuary with insight into trophic position and impacts of alien invasive species.  
Perry, Russel University of Wahsington $129,365 Estimating route-specific survival and distribution of juvenile salmonids migrating through the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta  
Parker, Alexander San Francisco State University $152,500 Heterotrophic bacteria and the foodweb of the low salinity zone and salt marsh habitats of the San Francisco estuary  
Luengen, Allison UC Davis $191,439 Mercury interactions with algae: effects on mercury biovailability in the S.F. bay delta  
Seavy, Nathaniel UC Davis $228,750 Measuring and predicting the success of riparian restoration for wildlife populations: accommodating uncertainty and complexity  
Clemento, Anthony UC Santa Cruz $129,375 Validation of a new method for population assessment of pacific salmonids using genetic markers  


2005 Fellows
P.I. Lead Institution Funding Title Products
Annjanette Dodd California State University, Humbolt $200,125 Development of a Simulation Model of Juvenile Salmon Movemen in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta  
John Harrison UC Davis $228,750 Modeling Nutrient and Organic Carbon Loads and Soures in Central Valley Watersheds: Taking Existing Monitoring Data to the Next Stage  
James Hobbs UC Davis $228,750 The Application of Otolith Geochemistry to Determine Stock Structure, Survival and the Relative Impact of Water Exports on the Threatened Delta Smelt  
Margaret Andrew UC Davis $111,750 Determining the Factors Controlling Site Invasibility to Lepidium latifolium  
Walter Heady UC Santa Cruz $129,375 Effects of Water Temperature, Streamflow and Flood Availability on the Growth.  
Suzanne Langridge UC Santa Cruz $129,239 Addressing Stakeholder Concerns: Pests and Pest Control in the Sacramento River Conservation Area  
J. Toby Minear UC Berkeley $107,679 Long-term Geomaorphic Effects of Dams on Rivers in the Central Valley of California.  
John Stella UC Berkeley $228,750 Restoring Non-Equilibrium Riparian Communities in Disturbance-Altered Ecosystems: Implications for River Management and Climate Change  


2003 Fellows
P.I. Lead Institution Funding Title Products
Sandra Clinton UC Berkeley $280,851 Terrestrial carbon in aquatic foodwebs  
John Stella UC Berkeley $93,491 A Mechanistic Model to Evaluate and Improve Riparian Restoration Success  
Frances Malamud- Roam UC Berkeley $205,600 Sediment Supply and Marsh Development in the San Francisco Estuary  
Jeff Opperman UC Davis $232,815 An investigation of floodplain habitat for California's native fish species  
Gretchen Rollwage- Bollens Washington State University $231,840 Protistan microzooplankton in the Suisun Bay Food Web.  
Noah Snyder Boston College $164,136 Using Stratigraphic and Hydrologic Data from the Yuba River System to Develop Reliable Sediment Transport Predictions