This update describes the project’s background and summarizes progress and data produced.
Most waterfowl habitats in the Central Valley of California rely on managed surface water supplies stored in reservoirs and delivered via a complex system to a wide array of competing water users. Water supplies vary with snow pack, temperature, and precipitation, all of which are projected to change substantially under some global climate models; land use and water management decisions also greatly impact water supplies. Led by USGS - Western Ecological Research Center , this multi - partner project ( California Landscape Conservation Cooperative, USFWS, CVJV, California Dept. of Fish and Game, Ducks Unlimited, Delta Waterfowl, Stockholm Environment Institute, PRBO Conservation Science, and University of California - Davis) is developing necessary data and adapting and applying the Central Valley Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model to investigate impacts of various climate, urbanization, an d water management scenarios on waterfowl habitats and ecology in the Central Valley . For each scenario, water supplies and demands are modeled in WEAP to estimate resulting landscape change . The amount, timing, and location of supported waterbird habitats based o n WEAP results are then included in bioenergetics models to evaluate adequacy of food supplies to support waterfowl populations under each scenario. Two bioenergetics modeling approaches are being used; the traditional TRUEMET accounting of waterfowl food supplies and population demands and a spatially - explicit Agent - Based Modeling (ABM) approach that models ecology of individual and allows an evaluation of not only changes in the amount of food - producing habitat but also changes in the spatial and temporal distribution of all habitats and behavioral responses of waterbirds to those habitat changes .
