2013 In 2013, the total rainfall was less than 34% of what was expected. Many regions of the state accumulated less rainfall in 2013 than any other year on record. As a result of this, many fish species were threatened. Streams and rivers were so low that fish couldn't get to their
spawning grounds, and survival rates of any eggs that were laid were expected to be low. Lack of rainfall had caused the mouths of rivers to be blocked off by sand bars which further prevented fish from reaching their spawning grounds. Stafford Lehr, Chief of Fisheries within the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife said that 95% of winter run salmon did not survive in 2013.
2014 According to the
NOAA Drought Task Force report of 2014, the drought was not part of a long-term change in precipitation and was a symptom of the natural variability, although the record-high temperature that accompanied the recent drought may have been amplified due to the enhanced greenhouse effect; human-induced
global warming. This was confirmed by a 2015 scientific study which estimated that global warming "accounted for 8–27% of the observed drought anomaly in 2012–2014... Although natural variability dominates, anthropogenic warming has substantially increased the overall likelihood of extreme California droughts." By February 1, 2014, Felicia Marcus, the chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board, claimed the 2014 drought "is the most serious drought we've faced in modern times." Marcus argues that California needs to "conserve what little we have to use later in the year, or even in future years." Pritchett & Manning 2009 showed that the alkali meadow vegetation plant community is groundwater dependent and that this characteristic buffers the system from the effects of drought. This means that certain plants are actually able to help prevent droughts, but can only do so if groundwater is maintained at a certain level. One of the reasons that the study was conducted was to ascertain whether the
Owens Valley region of California could handle any practiced or proposed
groundwater extraction. In February 2014, the Californian
drought reached for the first time in the 54-year history of the State Water Project to shortages of water supplies. The
California Department of Water Resources planned to reduce water allocations to farmland by 50%. California's 38 million residents experienced 13 consecutive months of drought. This is particularly an issue for the state's 44.7 billion dollar agricultural industry, which produces nearly half of all U.S.-grown fruits, nuts, and vegetables. This is after the LADWP expected to increase the pumping of aquifers to about a year (City of Los Angeles and County of Inyo 1991) but the
United States Geological Survey (USGS) reported that a sustainable pumping rate is a third lower, at around a year (Danskin 1998). According to NASA, tests published in January 2014 have shown that the twelve months prior to January 2014 were the driest on record, since record-keeping began in 1885. In mid-May 2014, the US Drought Monitor analysis showed that 100% of California was already under "Severe Drought" or a higher level. The 2014 drought is considered the worst in 1,200 years. As California received
additional rainfall in December 2014, this was not expected to end California's drought, and trees were at risk due to weakened roots. Experts also noted that due to the soil's extreme dryness and low groundwater levels, it would take significantly more rain—at least five more similar storms—to end the drought. On December 18, it was revealed that almost all of the Exceptional Drought in
Northern California had been reduced to Extreme Drought severity, as a result of the winter storms that brought rain to California during December. in Kern County In 2014, a study by the UC California Institute for Water Resources was released which found that rainfall has been abnormally high since the late 1800s. According to Professor Scott Stine from
Cal State East Bay, California experienced its wettest period in seven thousand years during the 20th century, according to his study of tree stumps around
Mono Lake,
Tenaya Lake and other parts of the
Sierra Nevada. Stine was quoted as saying in the
National Geographic Magazine, "What we have come to consider normal is profoundly wet". This view was backed by Lynn Ingram of
University of California, Berkeley, and Glen MacDonald of
UCLA. Lack of water due to low
snowpack prompted Californian governor
Jerry Brown to order a series of stringent mandatory water restrictions on April 1, 2015. Brown ordered cities and towns to reduce their water usage by 25%, which would amount in 1.5 million acre-feet of water in the nine months following the mandate in April. However, Brown's water restrictions were criticized because they were not applied to California's agricultural sector, which uses around 80% of California's developed water supply. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife closed dozens of streams and rivers to fishing in 2014. Lehr has said that he fears
coho salmon may go completely extinct south of the
Golden Gate Bridge in the near future. In early 2014 the main stems of the
Eel,
Mad,
Smith,
Van Duzen, and
Mattole rivers were closed pending additional rainfall. Large areas of the
Russian and
American rivers were closed indefinitely. Most rivers in
San Mateo,
Santa Cruz and
Monterey counties were also closed pending further rainfall. Protesters said that banning fishing would disrupt the economy and threaten the livelihoods of individuals who rely on salmon fishing during the winters. Officials, however, highlighted that it would help prevent species that are already in trouble from slipping to extinction. The 2015 prediction of
El Niño to bring rains to California raised hopes of ending the drought.