The West Without Water: A History of Droughts and Floods in California

In this illustrated talk authors Dr. Lynn Ingram, Professor in the Departments of Earth and Planetary Science and Geography at U.C. Berkeley, and Frances Malamud-Roam, Senior Environmental Planner-Natural Sciences Caltrans District 4, will present evidence for "megafloods" and "megadroughts" that recurred over the past several thousand years. These extreme events in California, mirrored by events throughout the West, were of much longer duration and severity than any experienced over the past century and are virtually unknown in the living memory of modern residents of the West.