Talk:Sacramento River

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[edit] Initial assessment

Barely beyond a stub. The importance of this resource in California is high. Needs expansion in fisheries, overall ecology, history, water politics. Anlace 00:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

teel me more -PROJECT peolpe need them

[edit] Basic information

I added an infobox and filled in what I could find, but I'm not particularly happy with the numbers. The source elevation is based on my guess that it is approximately equal to the base elevation of Mount Shasta. Also, the best I could find for discharge rate and watershed area was from http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1215/introduction.htm, which says only that the discharge is 27 billion cubic meters per year and that the watershed area is 70,000 square kilometers - I'm sure that there are more accurate numbers somewhere, but I couldn't find them. Rkstafford 22:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I just searched for good discharge info. Often such stats are not average annual discharge rates over many years. The figure out 15,000 cfs (and claim of 3rd largest in the US West) struck me as high, but I haven't found a good stat yet, other than the one mentioned above. 27 billion cubic meters per year works out to 30,215 cfs -- double that given in the infobox! I'm still a little skeptical though, I wonder if anyone knows of other sources? Also, there is the question of whether the discharge stat ought to be "natural" (before all the diversions for irrigation etc) or "actual". That same webpage says that of the 27 billion cubic meters per year, 18 billion are diverted for "agricultural, urban, and environmental uses".. although at least some of this must end up back in the river. I started looking into this due to the claim of the river being the 3rd largest (in discharge) of the US West, "after the Columbia and the Colorado". I'd have thought some of the PNW rivers would be contenders, but maybe not. Also, if discharge rates are "actual" rather than "natural", the Colorado River is nowhere near #2. Pfly 16:55, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Additional notes-- the USGS page http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1987/ofr87-242/ gives average discharge at mouth of some of the US's largest rivers. These are rivers of the western USA that flow into the Pacific Ocean (the Bering Sea is part of the Pacific Ocean, as the Colorado River flows into the Pacific via the Gulf of California), and seem likely to be larger in average discharge than the Sacramento River: Columbia River (265,000 cfs), Yukon River (225,000 cfs), Kuskokwim River (67,000 cfs), Copper River (59,000 cfs), Stikine River (56,000 cfs), Susitna River (51,000 cfs), and the Nushagak River (36,000 cfs). Large rivers that are tributary to others include the Snake River (56,900 cfs), Tanana River (41,000 cfs), Willamette River (37,400 cfs), and the Porcupine River (23,000 cfs). So.. even given the seemingly high stat of 30,215 cfs for the Sacramento River, it seems to fail this 3rd place rank as given, so I'm taking it out. Also, according to the above webpage, the Colorado River doesn't even come close to any of these, with an average discharge around 4,000 cfs. Once upon a time it was much higher. Pfly 17:28, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Longest rivers entirely in one state

Not sure how that "320 miles" got inserted for the Sacramento River length. Even a quick measurement on a map as reduced as the National Geographic World Atlas comes to nearly 400 miles (you can't cut corners on the bends!), and, when it's done properly by USGS using their 1:24,000 scale topos as is standard, you get 447 miles. USGS topos can be viewed (and rivers measured) at www.topozone.com. The longest and largest river entirely in one state is the Kuskokwim in Alaska, 720 miles long and a 41,000 cubic ft./sec. average discharge. It's followed by: 2. Trinity River, Texas 710 / 7,100 3. Sacramento - Pit, California 690 / 15,000 4. Tanana, Alaska 660 / 24,000 5. Koyukuk, Alaska 520 / 14,000 6. Innoko, Alaska 500 7. Altamaha, Georgia 470 / 14,000 8. Yazoo, Mississippi 465 / 10,000 9. Guadalupe, Texas 460 / 2,100 10. Kentucky, Kentucky 430 / 8,300 11. Salmon, Idaho 420 / 11,000 12. James, Virginia 410 / 7,500 River lengths are always measured in official lists along the longest watercourse (longest source, regardless of what name it carries....i.e. MS-MO-Beaverhead-Red Rock) (in this case, the Sacramento to the Pit to the S. Fork Pit - West Valley Cr. - Cedar Cr.) Sources: USGS and World Facts and Figures (John Wiley and Sons)DLinth (talk) 17:13, 25 December 2007 (UTC)