The multiple benefits of recharge basins<\/strong><\/p>\n Water managers and farmers can use recharge basins \u2014 essentially man-made ponds or lakes\u00a0\u2014 to capture excess runoff from increasingly intense winter storms. They can then store the water in the basin for future use or let it permeate into the ground to bolster groundwater levels and avoid issues such as land subsidence and domestic well failure.<\/p>\n While some recharge basins are dug deep and kept \u201cclean\u201d of plants, others like the one I visited mimic historic habitat, with features like shallow sloping basin floors and plant-covered islands.<\/p>\n EDF partnered with Point Blue Conservation Science, Audubon California and Sustainable Conservation to develop a guide for how to build this kind of preferred recharge basin that provides operational benefits to basin managers while also creating valuable waterbird habitat.<\/p>\n Proven success in delivering co-benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n Sustainable Conservation has been working with California irrigation districts for the past five years to identify locations for recharge projects and make the most of available surface water supplies. Though the districts they work with are primarily focused on recharge efficiency and cost savings, Daniel Mountjoy, director of resource stewardship, noticed some managers incorporating multibenefit features.<\/p>\n \u201cThese managers found that planting basin floors was enhancing infiltration rates and that sloped basins and banks were less likely to plug up with fine sediments,\u201d he explained. \u201cThese measures were taken to improve recharge efficiency, but they were also incidentally creating excellent waterbird habitat.\u201d New guide will help water managers and growers build recharge basins that provide operational benefits while also creating valuable waterbird habitat. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n And it takes only modest adjustments to recharge basin design and management for these bodies of water to also serve as a much-needed network of habitat for migratory waterbirds. We\u2019ve already seen this successful coupling of recharge and habitat in the Sacramento Valley, where The Nature Conservancy\u2019s BirdReturns<\/a> program has used an Airbnb model to create thousands of acres high quality habitat on flooded rice plains.<\/p>\n Surging interest provides new opportunities<\/strong><\/p>\n With pressure to balance groundwater supply and demand mounting, there\u2019s a surge in new plans for recharge basins and expansion of existing basins.<\/p>\n San Joaquin Valley water managers are already planning to build 15,000 acres of recharge basins in addition to the more than 30,000 acres already in place, according to a Point Blue<\/a> study. Many anticipate even greater expansion in the coming years.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to note that, in California, the capacity of underground water storage \u2014 which these recharge basins enable \u2014 is estimated to be more than 20 times greater<\/a> than the amount of currently available above-ground storage in reservoirs and lakes.<\/p>\n Some state and federal funding is available to support multibenefit recharge projects, but additional incentives and regulatory assurances are needed to kick-start adoption at a greater scale and create much-needed habitat in California.<\/p>\n California\u2019s Central Valley has lost more than 90% of its wetlands in the last century. We know it\u2019s impossible to re-create all of those wetlands, especially given the region\u2019s crucial role growing healthy food for the world. But as SGMA sparks greater interest in building recharge basins, farmers and water managers have an opportunity to develop valuable bird habitat while continuing to produce food.<\/p>\n I hope this guide<\/a> will provide helpful information and encourage water managers and landowners to seize this opportunity.<\/p>\n New guide helps groundwater managers build recharge basins that provide operational benefits while also creating valuable waterbird habitat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71922],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-11229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-water"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11229"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.edf.org\/growingreturns\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/52\/files\/2020\/03\/rechargeguide-birds540px.jpg\")
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