Speaker Series: Riparian Plant Communities

Join Louise Jackson as she shares information about plant communities along Sacramento’s local rivers and how these ecosystems have changed through history.

Before European settlement, vast riparian forests grew along the rivers and creeks of the Sacramento Valley and supported Native American villages. Using old maps, travel diaries and historical accounts, this talk will examine how these forests disappeared rapidly in the mid-1800s and why land management changed so precariously during this period. Today, the remnant forests still have some of the most complex structure of any forest type in California, and the richest biodiversity of animal life.

Photo From Thompson and West (1880), Courtesy of the Sacramento Room of the Sacramento Public Library.

Louise Jackson has studied natural and agricultural ecosystems in Central California for many decades. Recently, she began to explore how the Gold Rush triggered massive land use change, which then lured agricultural settlers, including her great-grandparents from Spain, with promises of abundance. Louise is Emerita Professor in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at UC Davis. She received her BA from UC Santa Cruz and her PhD from University of Washington.