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Bay-Delta Science Consortium Facts and Background
(This Consortium Fact Sheet is also available in a downloadable Microsoft Word version, 48K)

Who we are: The San Francisco Bay-Delta Science Consortium is an organization composed of 14 Federal and state agencies, private institutions and Universities involved with aquatic science research, monitoring, and education in the San Francisco Bay-Delta system.

Where we are: The Consortium is composed of member institutions who are spread throughout the greater San Francisco Bay-Delta area. The office of the Executive Director is currently located at the USGS in Menlo Park. Facilities housing multiple Consortium institutions are in the planning stages in both Rio Vista and the UC Davis Enterprise Zone.

Why we’re needed: As one of the most important and threatened ecosystems on the West Coast, California’s Bay-Delta Estuary is the focus of an array of scientific activities. The Bay-Delta Science Consortium was formed in an effort to coordinate these activities by increasing cooperation and collaboration among institutions to prevent the overlap of projects and resources and to produce a quality and quantity of science unattainable by institutions working alone.

What we do: The mission of the Consortium is to "To foster collaboration and the practice of interdisciplinary science in the San Francisco Bay-Delta region."

Current Activities: The Consortium Advisory Committee meets every 6 weeks to steer the direction of Consortium activities in pursuit of our mission.

• Research facilities — New office and laboratory facilities are in the planning stages for use by the California Department of Fish and Game, Department of Water Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Geological Survey, U.S. Forest Service, CALFED and visiting scientists.
• On-line scientific journal — Slated to debut in 2003, the journal will be free to the public and feature full length peer-reviewed articles by people doing science of interest to researchers in the Bay-Delta region.
• Common data management system — Consortium members are developing a distributed data system to help researchers locate and utilize meaningful data from a wide range of sources.
• Web-site development — The Consortium is continually improving its web-site to promote information sharing among it’s members and the general public.
• Resource Sharing — Member institutions are developing lists of resources such as office and lab space, vehicles, equipment, etc., that they are willing to share with other Consortium members.
• Funding Science — Roughly $1 million is available this fiscal year for research, monitoring and outreach activities; the bulk of these funds will be distributed in the form of research grants and workshops.

More information about the Bay-Delta Science Consortium is available by contacting info@baydeltaconsortium.org.