What does the Central Valley represent?
It is California’s most productive agricultural region and one of the most productive in the world, providing more than half of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown in the United States.
What makes the Central Valley so special?
The Central Valley’s fertile soil and extended growing season make it one of the major agricultural regions in the United States. The Central Valley is prone to greater daily and seasonal temperature ranges than the surrounding mountains or the coast.
What is the Central Valley of California filled with?
sediments
The Great Central Valley is a huge basin filled with sediments. Sands and gravel over 30,000 feet deep lie upon Sierran basement rocks that extend downward at an angle from the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. During the last 5 million years, sediments accumulated as alluvial deposits washed out of the mountains.
What role does the Central Valley play in California?
Using fewer than 1% of U.S. farmland, the Central Valley supplies 8% of U.S. agricultural output (by value) and produces 1/4 of the Nation’s food, including 40% of the Nation’s fruits, nuts, and other table foods.
What is an interesting fact about the Central Valley?
More than 7 million acres (28,000 km2) of the valley are irrigated via an extensive system of reservoirs and canals….Central Valley (California) facts for kids.
| Quick facts for kids California’s Central Valley | |
|---|---|
| Topography, major parts and cities of the Central Valley | |
| Length | 450 mi (720 km) |
| Width | 40 to 60 mi (64 to 97 km) |
| Area | 18,000 sq mi (47,000 km2) |
Was the Central Valley a lake?
The lake existed between about 758,000 and 665,000 years ago. Before Lake Corcoran formed, the Central Valley was a bay open to the south via a passage, until 2 million years ago when the bay was separated from the ocean, probably due to northwestward movement of the Coast Ranges along the San Andreas Fault.
What landforms are in the Central Valley?
The Central Valley is outlined by the Cascade, Sierra Nevada, and Tehachapi mountain ranges on the east, and the California Coast Ranges and San Francisco Bay on the west. The broad valley floor is carpeted by vast agricultural regions, and dotted with numerous population centers.
What created the Central Valley?
A Fertile Valley The Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys form the 450-mile-long Central Valley, which was once an inland sea. Sediment from mountain erosion created its ultrarich soil. Water Source Gradual spring snowmelt once provided a reliable water supply, collected in dammed lakes and man-made reservoirs.
Why was the Central Valley Project built?
It was devised in 1933 in order to provide irrigation and municipal water to much of California’s Central Valley—by regulating and storing water in reservoirs in the northern half of the state (once considered water-rich but suffering water-scarce conditions more than half the year in most years), and transporting it …
What animals live in Central Valley?
Native grasslands supported several herbivores including pronghorn antelope (Antilocarpa americana), elk (including a valley subspecies, the Tule Elk, (Cervus elaphus nannodes), mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), California ground squirrels, gophers, mice, hare, rabbits, and kangaroo rats.
What plants and animals live in the Central Valley?
How does Central Valley get its water?
The Sacramento Canals Division of the CVP takes water from the Sacramento River much farther downstream of the Shasta and Keswick Dams. Diversion dams, pumping plants, and aqueducts provide municipal water supply as well as irrigation of about 100,000 acres (4,000,000 dam2).
What is the Central Valley Project in California?
Extending 400 miles through central California, the Central Valley Project (CVP) is a complex, multi-purpose network of dams, reservoirs, canals, hydroelectric powerplants and other facilities. The CVP reduces flood risk for the Central Valley, and supplies valley domestic and industrial water.
What are some interesting facts about the Central Valley?
While weird facts about California include lots of fun inventions, the Central Valley is more famous for agricultural inventions such as the Fresno Scraper, which is one of the prototypes for the modern bulldozers. 6. The Central Valley aquifers supply 20 percent of the nation’s groundwater.
How big is the Central Valley Project Improvement Act?
Dedicates 800,000 acre-feet per year to fish and wildlife and their habitat and 410,00 acre-feet to State and Federal wildlife refuges and wetlands, pursuant to the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA). The following links provide information on major features of the various divisions and units in the Central Valley Project:
How many dams does the Central Valley Project have?
In addition to water storage and regulation, the system has a hydroelectric capacity of over 2,000 megawatts, and provides recreation and flood control with its twenty dams and reservoirs.