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Klamath Basin Adaptive Management Plan
The Klamath Work Plan for Adaptive Management
In March 2002, President Bush created the Klamath River Basin Federal Working Group. Comprised of the Secretaries
of Agriculture, Interior, and Commerce, and the Chairman of the Council
of Environmental Quality, the working group advises the President on
immediate steps and long-term solutions to enhance water quality and
quantity and address other environmental issues in the basin.
The Klamath River Basin gained national attention in the spring of 2001 when
a combination of drought and the impacts of the Endangered Species Act triggered
a shutdown of irrigation water during the growing season to more than 1,300
farms and ranches in the US Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) project area.
NRCS immediately began providing technical and financial assistance to these
producers to minimize drought impacts. In cooperation with Conservation
Districts, NRCS was able to establish 41,000 acres of cover crops on highly
erodible lands using Emergency Watershed Protection Program funds. Recognizing
the broader implication of the resource issues, the Klamath Soil & Water
Conservation District (SWCD) in Oregon and the Lava Beds/Butte Valley Resource
Conservation District (RCD) in California met in the first of a series of
strategic planning sessions. The basin-wide nature of the resource issues
subsequently brought the locally elected officials from these two Conservation
Districts, together with officials from the lower Klamath Basin: Humboldt RCD,
Shasta Valley RCD, Siskiyou RCD, and Trinity RCD.
Goal and Objectives
The primary goal of the six Klamath Basin Conservation Districts is to
achieve a reliable water supply for agriculture. The core objectives of
the Conservation Districts are to:
- Decrease water demand
- Increase water storage
- Improve water quality
- Develop fish and wildlife habitat
Summary of NRCS Basin-wide Planning Assistance
Basin-wide planning assistance occur is three phases:
- Phase 1: Rapid Assessment of current resource conditions,
recommendations of resource management systems to solve identified
problems, and estimates of on-farm effects for each sub-basin.
- Phase 2: Evaluate the cumulative effects of proposed resource
management systems on a basin-wide scale.
- Phase 3: Specialized assistance with planning, designing and
implementing projects at the sub-basin or community level, including tasks
to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the conservation being
applied.
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Rapid Sub-Basin Assessment Maps
Rapid Sub-basin Assessments Completed as of December 2002.
Click to view a larger image.
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Sub-Basin Approach
In the rapid assessment process, the Conservation Districts and NRCS focused
first on the six Upper Klamath sub-basins, rather than the entire
Klamath River Basin. The rapid assessments for the Upper and Lower
Klamath are currently being developed. As these sub-basin assessments are
completed they will be linked below.
![Thumbnail of Klamath
location map](images/kb-location-thumb.jpg)
click to view a larger image
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Upper Klamath Sub-basins
- Sprague River, Oregon
- Williamson River, Oregon
- Upper Klamath Lake, Oregon
- Lost River, Oregon, California
- Upper Klamath East, Oregon, California
- Butte Creek, California, Oregon
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Lower Klamath Sub-basins
- Upper Klamath West, California, Oregon
- Shasta, California
- Scott, California
- Salmon, California
- Lower Klamath, California, Oregon
- Trinity, California
- South Fork Trinity, California
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