The Carneros Watershed

The Carneros Creek Watershed is located in the Central Coast of California, in Monterey County. The Carneros Watershed is part of the larger Elkhorn Slough Watershed, and Carneros Creek is the main fresh water tributary to Elkhorn Slough.

Land cover / land use

Prior to Spanish and American settlement, the Carneros watershed was dominated by floodplains and marches. The Carneros Creek was then a steady moving stream that perhaps disappeared into the numerous Carneros wetlands. Activities of settlement including the reclamation efforts to drain the lower levels of the Carneros Creek, resulted in the loss of these wetlands and continue to influence the creek to this day(Largay 2007).

The Carneros watershed covers approximately 70-km2 with mixed land use including, rural residential, grazed grasslands, cultivated areas, maritime chaparral, oak woodlands and riparian areas. Agricultural land use occupies approximately 10% of the watershed of which strawberries are the dominant crop. Other corps include, raspberries, flowers, vegetables and mushrooms (Holloway 2010).

Despite the high level of rural residency within the watershed, much of the watershed is undeveloped.

Surface water hydrology

named streams

Environmental issues & regulations

         * 303d-listed waterbodies?
         * ESA listed species?
         * Ag Waiver relevance

Available hydrological data

         * Precip gages
         * Streamflow gaging sites
  

Links

• EcoViz:SEP Focus Sites

References

reference