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Banner May 22, 2014

Your Online Water Encyclopedia

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L

Overview February 11, 2014

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Aquapedia background September 1, 2016 Lake Tahoe Lake Mead Mono Lake Diamond Valley Lake

Lakes

Definition

Lake TahoeA lake is an inland standing body of water.

Lake, Pond or Wetland?

Scientifically and legislatively, lakes are indistinguishable from ponds, but lakes generally are considered to be longer and deeper lentic, or still, waters. In the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists attempted to distinguish the two more formally, stating that ponds were shallow enough to allow sunlight to penetrate to the bottom, but this exists today as an unofficial point.

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Aquapedia background August 30, 2016

Lake Havasu & Parker Dam

Lake Havasu is a reservoir on the Colorado River that supplies water to the Colorado River Aqueduct and Central Arizona Project. It is located at the California/Arizona border, approximately 150 miles southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada and 30 miles southeast of Needles, California.

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  • Layperson's Guide to the Colorado River
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Lake Mathews

Situated in southwest Riverside County near the Santa Ana Mountains – about 60 miles southeast of Los Angeles – Lake Mathews is a major reservoir in Southern California.

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  • Layperson's Guide to the Colorado River
Aerial view of Lake Mead
Aquapedia background February 11, 2014 Colorado River Basin Map Layperson's Guide to the Colorado River Elwood Mead Colorado River Hoover Dam

Lake Mead

Lake Mead is the main reservoir formed by Hoover Dam on the border between Southern Nevada and northwestern Arizona.

Created in the 1930s as part of Hoover Dam [see also Elwood Mead], Lake Mead provides water storage in the Lower Basin of the Colorado River. The reservoir is designed to hold 28,945,000 acre-feet of water and at 248 square miles its capacity is the largest in United States.

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Lake Perris

The State Water Project facility Lake Perris, below the San Bernardino Mountains, stores water for Inland Empire cities such as San Bernardino and Riverside. [See also Santa Ana River.]

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Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam

The construction of Glen Canyon Dam in 1964 created Lake Powell. Both are located in north-central Arizona near the Utah border. Lake Powell acts as a holding tank for outflow from the Colorado River Upper Basin States: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

The water stored in Lake Powell is used for recreation, power generation and delivering water to the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona, and Nevada. 

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Aquapedia background February 11, 2014 Lakes

Lake Tahoe

World-renowned for its crystal clear, azure water, Lake Tahoe straddles the Nevada-California border, stretching 22 miles long and 12 miles wide and hemmed in by Sierra Nevada peaks.

At 1,645 feet deep, Tahoe is the second-deepest lake in the United States and the 10th deepest in the world. The iconic lake sits 6,225 feet above sea level.

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Land Retirement
Aquapedia background February 11, 2014

Land Retirement

Land retirement is a practice that takes agricultural lands out of production due to poor drainage and soils containing high levels of salt and selenium (a mineral found in soil).

Typically, landowners are paid to retire land. The purchaser, often a local water district, then places a deed restriction on the land to prevent growing crops with irrigation water (a source of salt). Growers in some cases may continue to farm using rain water, a method known as dry farming.

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Land Subsidence
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Land Subsidence

Land subsidence is the lowering of the land-surface elevation due to changes that take place underground.

Throughout California, subsidence has damaged buildings, aqueducts, well casings, bridges and highways. Common causes include pumping water, oil or gas, dissolution of limestone aquifers known as sinkholes, drainage of organic soils and initial wetting of dry soils, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

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Aquapedia background March 18, 2015

Landsat

The Landsat satellite program is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey.  Launched in 1972, Landsat is the longest continuous global record of Earth observations.  Landsat data is used to evaluate agricultural production.

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Aquapedia background August 15, 2016

Leach

Applying water in excess of a crop’s needs to flush out salts from the root zone.

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Lee Ferry, the dividing point under the 1922 Colorado River Compact between the Upper Basin and Lower Basin.
Aquapedia background February 11, 2014

Lee Ferry

Lee Ferry on the Arizona-Utah border is a key dividing point between the Colorado River’s Upper and Lower basins.

This split is important when it comes to determining how much water will be delivered from the Upper Basin to the Lower Basin [for a description of the Upper and Lower basins, visit the Colorado River page].

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Levees
Aquapedia background February 11, 2014

Levees

California would not exist as it does today were it not for the extensive system of levees, weirs and flood bypasses that have been built through the years, particularly in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

These levees have been in place dating back to 1850, when California first joined the union.

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Aquapedia background February 11, 2014

Los Angeles Aqueduct and Owens Valley

The Owens Valley in eastern California helped transform distant Los Angeles to today’s sprawling megalopolis.

Roughly 100 years ago, Los Angeles recognized the need to augment local water supplies and decided to tap faraway sources.

In 1905, the city of Los Angeles filed for water rights on the Owens River in the eastern Sierra Nevada, 250 miles away. Municipal crews began work on a 233-mile aqueduct capable of delivering four times more water than the city then required.

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Aquapedia background February 11, 2014

Los Angeles River

After years of decline and minimal to non-existent flows, the once moribund Los Angeles River is now being transformed into a recreational and open space corridor.

For much of its recent history, the river has been little more than bystander since the founding of Los Angeles as a pueblo more than 200 years ago.

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Aquapedia background February 11, 2014 Colorado River Basin Map Layperson's Guide to the Colorado River

Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program

The Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program aims to balance use of Colorado River water resources with the conservation of native species and their habitat. A key component of the program is the restoration and enhancement of existing riparian and marsh habitat along the lower Colorado River. 

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