Environment of California

The California Gold Rush caused explosive population growth making San Francisco the only 19th century city west of St. Louis, Missouri.

The Great Flood of 1862 washed gravel displaced by gold mining downstream to cover riparian cropland and fill formerly navigable stream channels serving as transportation corridors to San Francisco Bay.

The damage encouraged passage of water pollution control legislation, broadly regulating disposal of waste to include relatively innocuous materials like gravel.

The California Trail became the first important land link between San Francisco Bay and the eastern United States during the gold rush and became the route of the First transcontinental railroad in 1869.

Redwood proved poorly suited for railroad ties, so fast-growing Australian eucalypts were widely planted to provide future supplies.

[6] Unsuccessful gold prospectors soon recognized California's agricultural potential and their mining equipment began adjusting timing and location of stream flows to increase food production.

Irrigation return flows like the New River may contain pesticides and elevated concentrations of dissolved minerals, and may accumulate in endorheic basins like Kesterson Reservoir.

The relatively low urban population density encouraged by automobile mobility features edge effect habitats including a broad range of landscaping plants.

Omnivores able to cross streets, roads, and freeways thrive in this spatially fragmented habitat with dry season water available from landscape irrigation.

Columbidae, Corvidae, house sparrow, European starling and gulls fly between isolated habitat segments, while raccoons, opossums, skunks and rats travel under bridges and through culverts and storm drains.