Sacramento River Flows Study & the Sacramento river Ecological Flows Tool (SacEFT)

Starting in 1989, The Nature Conservancy and its partners began to develop a strategy for ecosystem restoration on the Sacramento River, California. Initially focused on riparian revegetation, the plan moved to a study of how Shasta and Keswick Dams could be operated to better incorporate multiple ecosystem targets (e.g., periodic riparian initiation flows, flows beneficial to spawning and rearing chinook salmon, bank swallows, western pond turtles). The study emphasized linking physical models of flow, sediment transport and channel migration rates with habitat suitability and key survival indicators for these focal species.