Tulare Lake

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Coordinates: 36 ° 4 ′  N , 119 ° 45 ′  W

Map: California
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Tulare Lake​
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California

The Tulare Lake was a lake in the southern San Joaquin Valley in what is now Kings County in California . Until the late 19th century it was the second largest freshwater lake (after Lake Michigan ), which was entirely in the United States . When more and more water was withdrawn from its inflows for the growing cities and for irrigation of agricultural areas, it dried up. Its name is derived from tule rush , the English name for the pond rush species Schoenoplectus acutus , which grew on its marshy banks, and is namesake of Tulare County , from which Kings County was spun off in 1893.

geography

The lake was part of a partially endorheic basin at the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, which with an area of ​​around 42,000 km² makes up about ten percent of the area of ​​California and lies between the Sierra Nevada in the east and the California coastal mountains in the west. It was located in a landscape created by tectonic subsidence, which has little height differences due to river deposits and is separated from the northern San Joaquin Valley by alluvial cones of the Kings River and Los Gatos Creek. Tulare Lake was the largest end lake in this basin; the other three - Kern Lake , Buena Vista Lake, and Goose Lake - combined were less than a tenth of its area.

Due to the small differences in altitude, the lake area fluctuated greatly depending on the season or dry periods. In years with average rainfall, the water level rose by one meter, in years with high rainfall by up to three meters. The wide belts of reeds and swamps around the lake were flooded. Surpassing the water level at an altitude of 63 m above the sea, the lake could the flow direction of Fresno Slough , long a 64 km and to wide as 76 meters marshy, natural duct at the north end of the lake, reverse and the water in the San Joaquin River dissipate . This happened in 19 out of 29 years between 1850 and 1878. At its highest water level at 66 m in 1862 and 1868, the lake had an area of ​​over 2,000 km² and was over 10 meters deep. The runoff in 1862 is estimated at around 220 million m³ of water. In dry years the shallow lake was significantly smaller. The strongly changeable shorelines could also be shifted several kilometers by strong winds.

Depending on climate changes, the area of ​​the lake fluctuated several times in the Holocene from just a few to its maximum size of over 2,000 km². It is believed that during the dry periods from 892 to 1112 and from 1209 to 1350 the lake must have either dried up or at least was very small. Only the rising temperatures and amounts of precipitation since the middle of the 19th century caused the lake to overflow more frequently. Without the diversion of rivers and increased water abstraction that began in the 1860s, Tulare Lake would probably have drained into the San Joaquin River in 40% of the years in the 20th century.

Tributaries

Tulare Lake and southern San Joaquin Valley in 1873 with possible irrigation channels (dashed lines)

The four main tributaries of Tulare Lake all came from the Sierra Nevada and formed wide inland deltas in the plain with numerous canals and swamp areas that could dry up at times. To the south, the Kern River created a clearly delineated swamp plain below Bakersfield and left most of its water in Kern Lake and Buena Vista Lake, with a smaller part flowing on to Tulare Lake. The north adjoining river systems of White River and Deer Creek carried too little water to lead to Tulare Lake for most of the year, which only happened during floods. The Tule River , the smallest tributary of the lake, formed an alluvial cone from Porterville , which it regularly flooded due to its small estuary arms during high water. In the northwest the Kaweah River flowed into the plain at Visalia and divided into four large and numerous small canals, which led to extensive swamp areas. The most northerly and most important tributary with about half of the supplied water was the Kings River with its large alluvial cone, which separated the depression on its eastern side from the San Joaquin River. Most of its water flowed through elongated wetlands towards Tulare Lake, while a smaller amount was led to the San Joaquin River. No river reached the lake from the dry coastal chain to the west.

The region where the lake was located has a climate similar to the Mediterranean Sea, with 80% of rainfall falling between November and March, with an average annual total of less than 400 mm, of which three quarters evaporate again. 98% of the surface water in the basin comes from the Sierra Nevada, mainly from the snowmelt period from April to July, the remaining 2% from the coastal chain.

The end of the lake

The Yokut Indians lived on the shores of Tulare Lake. Due to the abundance of game and fish in the area, they had the highest population density in North America in the pre- colonial era , but did not disturb the lake's ecosystem. The arrival of the Europeans and the introduction of agriculture in the second half of the 19th century marked the beginning of the extensive transformation of the region. The floods of 1861/62, which greatly changed the drainage routes of the rivers, and the floods of 1867/68, the highest since the arrival of the Europeans, led to the maximum expansion of the lake for the last time. As early as 1871, large areas were used for agriculture, the numerous mouths of the four rivers, especially the Tule River and the Kaweah River, were converted into irrigation channels. In 1872 the Kings River was completely diverted to the San Joaquin River, causing the water level of Tulare Lake to drop so far that parts of the original lake bed could be used for agriculture as early as the 1880s. At the same time, the salt content of the lake rose so much that many species of fish could no longer survive. In 1899 the lake is described as dry for the first time, and the end of fishing was reached.

Although more and more dams were built on the upper reaches of the rivers for irrigation of agricultural areas and for drinking water supply up to the second half of the 20th century, larger water areas were created again and again in rainy years, for example from 1906 to 1917. The subsequent dry period left the lake again shrink. In the 1920s, James Griffin Boswell from Georgia bought around 200 km² of the former seabed to plant cotton on it. His nephew of the same name, who enlarged the property to around 650 km² in California alone and thus became the largest cotton producer in the country, finally drained the remains of the lake.

In the years 1937 to 1946 and 1950 to 1953 the lake was rebuilt, as the irrigation and drainage canals could no longer discharge the amount of water that had accumulated. During the Second World War, for example, it was used as a secondary airfield to the Naval Air Station Alameda for flying boats .

In the 20th century, four so-called storage cells were set up on an area of ​​around 80 km², mainly in the southern part of the depression, in order to be able to absorb floods. These areas are limited by dikes and are no longer used for agriculture. The dikes broke during the particularly strong floods in 1969, 1983 and most recently in 1997. In 1969, 360 km² of land were flooded and the newly created Tulare Lake reached its highest level in this century with a water level of 58.6 meters. In 1983 the floodplain exceeded 400 km², but the lake did not return to the water level of 1969. In both cases, the pumping out of the water took longer than a year.

There are plans to restore at least part of Tulare Lake. This could absorb future floods and at the same time serve as a water reservoir for dry years in the San Joaquin Valley, the world's most productive agricultural region. In 2001, one of the largest cotton growers in the Tulare Basin stopped production due to a sharp drop in world market prices and, in cooperation with the state of California, renatured a small part of its cultivation area to a wetland.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tulare Lake in the United States Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System
  2. ↑ EcoRP Consulting, Inc .: Tulare Lake basin hydrology and hydrography: a summary of the movement of water and aquatic species , US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, p.9 . (PDF; 5.6 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  3. ↑ EcoRP Consulting, Inc .: Tulare Lake basin hydrology and hydrography: a summary of the movement of water and aquatic species , US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, p 7/8 . (PDF; 5.6 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  4. ↑ EcoRP Consulting, Inc .: Tulare Lake basin hydrology and hydrography: a summary of the movement of water and aquatic species , US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, pp 9-11 . (PDF; 5.6 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  5. ^ The Holocene Lake Level History of Tulare Lake, California . Retrieved April 20, 2012
  6. ↑ EcoRP Consulting, Inc .: Tulare Lake basin hydrology and hydrography: a summary of the movement of water and aquatic species , US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, p 12/13 . (PDF; 5.6 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  7. ↑ EcoRP Consulting, Inc .: Tulare Lake basin hydrology and hydrography: a summary of the movement of water and aquatic species , US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, p 13-15 . (PDF; 5.6 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  8. ↑ EcoRP Consulting, Inc .: Tulare Lake basin hydrology and hydrography: a summary of the movement of water and aquatic species , US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, p 15-18 . (PDF; 5.6 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  9. ↑ a b c d Judith Lewis: The ghost of Tulare . In: High Country News, December 9, 2009. Retrieved February 6, 2016
  10. ↑ EcoRP Consulting, Inc .: Tulare Lake basin hydrology and hydrography: a summary of the movement of water and aquatic species , US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, p.18 . (PDF; 5.6 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  11. ↑ EcoRP Consulting, Inc .: Tulare Lake basin hydrology and hydrography: a summary of the movement of water and aquatic species , US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, p.20 . (PDF; 5.6 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  12. ↑ EcoRP Consulting, Inc .: Tulare Lake basin hydrology and hydrography: a summary of the movement of water and aquatic species , US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, p.39 . (PDF; 5.6 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  13. ^ William L. Preston: Vanishing Landscapes. Land and Life in the Tulare Lake Basin . University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1981. p. 161. Google Books
  14. ^ The California State Military Museum: Naval Air Station, Alameda. Retrieved April 20, 2012
  15. ↑ EcoRP Consulting, Inc .: Tulare Lake basin hydrology and hydrography: a summary of the movement of water and aquatic species , US Environmental Protection Agency, 2007, p 40-43 . (PDF; 5.6 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  16. ↑ San Joaquin Valley Leadership Forum: Tulare Lake Basin Surface / Groundwater Storage (PDF; 1.4 MB) Retrieved April 20, 2012
  17. ^ US Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved April 20, 2012