The Santa Ana River is the largest river entirely within Southern California in the United States. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows for most of its length through San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, before cutting through the northern Santa Ana Mountains via Santa Ana Canyon and flowing southwest through urban Orange County to drain into the Pacific Ocean. The Santa Ana River is 96 miles (154 km) long, and its drainage basin is 2,650 square miles (6,900 km2) in size.
Seven Oaks Dam is a 550-foot (170 m) high earth and rock fill embankment dam across the Santa Ana River in the San Bernardino Mountains, about 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Redlands in San Bernardino County, southern California. It impounds Seven Oaks Reservoir in the San Bernardino National Forest.
The San Gabriel River is a mostly urban waterway flowing 58 miles (93 km) southward through Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California in the United States. It is the central of three major rivers draining the Greater Los Angeles Area, the others being the Los Angeles River and Santa Ana River. The river's watershed stretches from the rugged San Gabriel Mountains to the heavily developed San Gabriel Valley and a significant part of the Los Angeles coastal plain, emptying into the Pacific Ocean between the cities of Long Beach and Seal Beach.
Whittier Narrows Dam is a 56-foot tall earth dam on the San Gabriel River and the smaller, parallel Rio Hondo. The dam is located, as the name implies, at the Whittier Narrows. It provides water conservation storage and is also the central element of the Los Angeles County Drainage Area (LACDA) flood control system. Its reservoir has a capacity of 67,060 acre⋅ft (82,720,000 m3).
Tujunga Wash is a 13-mile-long (20.9 km) stream in Los Angeles County, California. It is a tributary of the Los Angeles River, providing about a fifth of its flow, and drains about 225 square miles (580 km2). It is called a wash because it is usually dry, especially the lower reaches, only carrying significant flows during and after storms, which usually only occur between November and April. The name of the wash derives from a Tongva village name.
The Los Angeles flood of 1938 was one of the largest floods in the history of Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties in southern California. The flood was caused by two Pacific storms that swept across the Los Angeles Basin in February-March 1938 and generated almost one year's worth of precipitation in just a few days. Between 113–115 people were killed by the flooding. The Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and Santa Ana Rivers burst their banks, inundating much of the coastal plain, the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, and the Inland Empire. Flood control structures spared parts of Los Angeles County from destruction, while Orange and Riverside Counties experienced more damage.
Puddingstone Reservoir is a 250-acre (1 km²) artificial lake northeast of the interchange between the Orange Freeway and the San Bernardino Freeway in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Activities include fishing, swimming, sailing, wind surfing, and camping.
The Sierra Madre Dam is a dam on Little Santa Anita Creek, at the mouth of Little Santa Anita Canyon, in Los Angeles County, California. It is in the San Gabriel Mountains, south of the Angeles National Forest, on the northern border of Sierra Madre.
Coyote Creek is a principal tributary of the San Gabriel River in northwest Orange County, southeast Los Angeles County, and southwest Riverside County, California. It drains a land area of roughly 41.3 square miles (107 km2) covering five major cities, including Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, La Habra, and La Palma. Some major tributaries of the creek in the highly urbanized watershed include Brea Creek, Fullerton Creek, and Carbon Creek. The mostly flat creek basin is separated by a series of low mountains, and is bounded by several small mountain ranges, including the Chino Hills, Puente Hills and West Coyote Hills.
Santa Fe Dam is a flood-control dam on the San Gabriel River located in Irwindale in Los Angeles County, California, United States. For most of the year, the 92-foot (28 m)-high dam and its reservoir lie empty, but can hold more than 45,000 acre-feet (56,000,000 m3) of water during major storms. During the dry season, the basin behind the dam is used for groundwater recharge, as well as various recreational activities.
San Gabriel Dam is a rock-fill dam on the San Gabriel River in Los Angeles County, California, within the Angeles National Forest. Completed in 1939, the dam impounds the main stem of the San Gabriel River about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) downstream from the confluence of the river's East and West Forks, which drain a large portion of the San Gabriel Mountains. It is located directly upstream from the Morris Dam. The dam provides flood control, groundwater recharge flows and hydroelectricity for the heavily populated San Gabriel Valley in the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area.
Santa Anita Dam, also known as Big Santa Anita Dam, is a concrete thin arch dam on Santa Anita Creek in the San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles County, California. Owned by the Los Angeles County Flood Control District, the dam serves for flood control, water conservation and debris control. The dam is 225 feet (69 m) high and 612 feet (187 m) long, holding 858 acre-feet (1,058,000 m3) of water with a maximum capacity of 1,028 acre⋅ft (1,268,000 m3). The catchment area for the dam is 10.8 square miles (28 km2). The dam was built between 1923 and 1927.
Carbon Canyon Dam is a dam at the northern edge of Orange County, California. The dam is approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) east of the city of Brea and approximately 12 miles (19 km) north of the city of Santa Ana. The drainage area above the dam is 19.3 square miles (50 km2) and is encompassed entirely within the Puente and Chino Hills. The Carbon Canyon Creek flows in a generally southwesterly direction onto the coastal Orange County Plain, joins Coyote Creek, and then flows into the San Gabriel River.
Chino Creek is a major stream of the Pomona Valley, in the western Inland Empire region of Southern California. It is a tributary of the Santa Ana River.
Morris Dam is a concrete gravity dam across the San Gabriel River in the U.S. state of California. It impounds Morris Reservoir, directly downstream of San Gabriel Dam.
Big Tujunga Dam is a 244-foot-high (74 m) concrete arch dam in Los Angeles County, California, spanning Big Tujunga Canyon northeast of Sunland, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Completed in 1931, it provides flood control and groundwater recharge for the San Fernando Valley.
Puddingstone Dam is a 147 ft (45 m) high earth and rockfill dam in the San Gabriel Valley, within San Dimas in eastern Los Angeles County, California.
The Middle Rio Grande Project manages water in the Albuquerque Basin of New Mexico, United States. It includes major upgrades and extensions to the irrigation facilities built by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and modifications to the channel of the Rio Grande to control sedimentation and flooding. The bulk of the work was done by the United States Bureau of Reclamation and the United States Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s, but construction continued into the 1970s and maintenance is ongoing. The project is complementary to the San Juan-Chama Project, which transfers water from the San Juan River in the Colorado River Basin to the Rio Grande. Although distribution of water from the two projects is handled through separate allotments and contracts, there is some sharing of facilities including the river itself. The ecological impact on the river and the riparian zone was the subject of extended litigation after a group of environmentalists filed Rio Grande Silvery Minnow v. Bureau of Reclamation in 1999.
Big Dalton Dam is a multiple arch concrete dam in Los Angeles County, California, built for the Los Angeles County Flood Control District and completed in August 1929. The dam is one of the earliest of the multiple arch "double-wall" buttress designs of engineer Fred A. Noetzli. The 991 acre-foot dam provides water conservation and controls flooding from Big Dalton Canyon, a watershed within the San Dimas Experimental Forest, part of the Angeles National Forest in the San Gabriel Mountains. It is about 4 miles northeast of the city of Glendora and is operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.
Walnut Creek is an urban stream in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California, and is a tributary of the San Gabriel River. The creek begins at the Puddingstone Dam of Puddingstone Reservoir in Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park and flows westward for about 13 miles (21 km), through San Dimas, Covina, West Covina and Baldwin Park, to join the San Gabriel River in El Monte.
