• Impacts of Climate Change on Landscapes of the Eastern Sierra Nevada and Western Great Basin
  USGS Open File Report 01-202 by Angela Jayko and Connie Millar. Sept. 2000 Workshop Summary. Many abstracts.

• Reasonable Further Progress Report for the Mono Basin PM-10 State Implementation Plan
  May 2018 (1.5MB)
  This 20-page progress preport is the update following the September 2015 report. 2016 had the highest number of violations since 2000, raising concerns about the length of time to attainment. An updated hydrologic model is needed.
  September 2015(437KB)
  This 19-page progress report is the update following the September 2010 report. Hydrologic model performance should be re-evaluated as called for previously.
  September 2010 (500KB)
  This 17-page progress preport is the update following the September 2007 report. The lake has fluctuated around 6383 feet in recent years, and 2010 might have the highest number of violations since monitoring began, raising concerns about the length of time to attainment. Hydrologic model performance should be re-evaluated as called for previously.
  October 2007 (734KB)
  This 13-page progress report is the update following the September 2004 report. Recent wet years have raised the lake back up to where predicted average runoff would put it.
  September 2004 (95KB) | Data (193KB)
  This 11-page progress report is the update following the September 2001 report. It calls for a re-evaluation of the hydrologic model performance. The data can also be downloaded in an Excel file.
  September 2001 (210KB)
  This 27-page document provides a progress report on air quality trends in the Mono Basin federal PM-10 nonattainment area since the adoption of the Mono Basin PM-10 State Implementation Plan in May 1995.

• 1999 Fisheries Monitoring Report--Executive Summary
  For Rush, Lee Vining, Parker and Walker creeks, by Chris Hunter, Brad Shepard, Darren Mierau, Ken Knudson, Ross Taylor. This is a report on the Water Board-ordered fish population monitoring.

• A New Role for Sulphur in Arsenic Cycling
  December 2007, by Jenny C. Fisher, Dirk Wallschläger, Britta Planer-Friedrich, and James T. Hollibaugh.

• An Ecological Study of Mono Lake, California
  June, 1977. Edited by David Winkler for the Mono Basin Research Group. Includes a PDF of the study, field notes, links to articles, photos from 1976, and photos from the 30-year reunion.

• Animal Life in the Yosemite: An Account of the Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, and Amphibians in a Cross-Section of the Sierra Nevada
  By Joseph Grinnell and Tracy Irwin Storer, 1924

• Aquatic Habitat Characteristics and Trout Demography In Selected Sections of Five Eastern Sierra Streams, by Donald W. Sada, May 6, 2000 (628K)
  Previously unpublished; from one of the largest Sierran trout datasets ever compiled.

• Belding's Ground Squirrel Publications by Jill Mateo, Ph.D, University of Chicago

• Creel returns from Rush Creek Test Stream, Mono County, California, 1947-1951
  Elden H. Vestal, Inland Fisheries Branch, California Department of Fish and Game

• Ecology, biodiversity, management, and restoration of aspen in the Sierra Nevada
  USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station

• Evaluation of Pinyon Removal Effects Typical of a Wildland-Urban Interface Fuels Reduction Project, Mono County, California: Avian Monitoring Component at Rancheria Gulch, 2005.

• Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep Recovery Program Decade in Review - 2010-2011 Annual Report (4.7 MB)

• Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep Recovery Program - First Quarter 2008 Report (2 MB)

• Super-hydrophobic diving flies (Ephydra hians) and the hypersaline waters of Mono Lake (1.2 MB)
  Floris van Breugel & Michael Dickinson, CalTech (formatted version)

• The Mono Basin Ecosystem: Effects of Changing Lake Level (1987)
  By the National Research Council

• An Albino Eared Grebe at Mono Lake   (87K)
  1948 Ken Stott

• Annual variation in numbers of breeding California Gulls at Mono Lake, California: The importance of natal philopatry and local and regional conditions
  February 2006 by Peter H. Wrege, W. David Shuford, David W. Winkler, and Robert Jellison

• California Partners in Flight Bird Conservation Plans: Riparian Bird Conservation Plan
  The California Partners in Flight (CalPIF) program, made possible through funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and significant contributions of time and funding from many other CalPIF partners, has completed six habitat and bioregion based Bird Conservation Plans (BCP's) for Riparian, Oak Woodlands, Coastal Scrub and Chaparral, Grasslands, Coniferous Forests, and the Sierra Nevada Bioregion. Plans are in development for Shrubsteppe and Desert habitats. The CalPIF program is part of the international Partners in Flight Initiative.

• Distribution and abundance of the Snowy Plover on its Western North American Breeding Grounds
  Gary W. Page, Lynne E. Stenzel, W. David Shuford, Charles R. Bruce. Journal of Field Ornithology, Spring 1991.

• Eastern Kingbird at Mono Lake (91K)
  1921 Ralph Hoffmann

• Economic Analysis of the 3rd Annual Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua (712K)
  December 2004 by H. River Gates, PRBO

• Factors Influencing the Abundance and Distribution of the Snowy Plover at Mono Lake, California
  2016 Western Birds: W. David Shuford, Gary W. Page, Sacha K. Heath, and Kristie N.
  Nelson

• Fall Waterfowl Use of Bridgeport Reservoir, Mono County, California
  November 2021, Deborah J. House

• Foraging Ecology of Snowy Plovers and the Distribution of their Arthropod Prey at Mono Lake, CA
  1983 Masters Thesis by Christopher W. Swarth, CSU Hayward.

• Gadwall Biology in a Hypersaline Environment: Is High Productivity Offset by Postbreeding Mortality?
  Issn: 1524-4695 Journal: Waterbirds Volume: 28 Issue: 3 Pages: 335-343 Authors: Jehl, Joseph R

• Glass Mountain Breeding Bird Atlas Project: Preliminary Results, 1991 to 1995 (5.9 MB)
  January 1996, David Shuford and Peter J. Metropulos

• An integrated population model for assessing greater sage-grouse trends in the Bi-State Distinct Population Segment (Open-File Report 2014-1165 / PDF)
  Peter S. Coates, Brian J. Halstead, Erik J. Blomberg, Brianne Brussee, Kristy B. Howe, Lief Wiechman, Joel Tebbenkamp, Kerry P. Reese, Scott C. Gardner, Michael L. Casazza, August 2014, USGS Western Ecological Research Center

• Leucism in Eared Grebes in Western North America
  1985, Joseph R. Jehl, Jr.

• Multilocus population genetic survey of the greater sage-grouse across their range - S.J. Oyler-McCance, U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins Science Center, 2150 Centre Ave, Building C, Fort Collins, CO 80526 USA, S.E. Taylor and T.W. Quinn, Rocky Mountain Center for Conservation Genetics and Systematics, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208 USA

• A New Race of Fox Sparrow, from the Vicinity of Mono Lake, California (145K)
  1917 Joseph Grinnell, Tracy I. Storer

• PRBO's Eastern Sierra Projects
  Reports from the Eastern Sierra Riparian Songbird Conservation Project and Willow Flycatcher Study.

• Pacific Flyway Waterfowl Investigations, Mono Lake, 1948, by W. Dombrowski (722K)
  The quintessential report on pre-lake-decline waterfowl numbers.

• Population size and reproductive success of California Gulls at Mono Lake, California, with emphasis on the Negit Islets
  A project of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory (PRBO) and funded by the Mono Lake Committee. Yearly reports online since 1992, studies have occurred since 1983.

•  Sabine Gull at Mono Lake, California (90K)
  1952 by Earle R. Greene
• Seasonal and Diurnal Variation in the Diets of California Gull Nestlings at Mono Lake, California from 2000 to 2002 (1MB)
  May 2004 By Justin M. Hite, Peter H. Wrege, and David W. Winkler, PRBO Contribution No. 1018

• Some Notes from Negit Island, Mono Lake, California (102K)
  1938 Walter F. Nichols

• Spacing Out at Mono Lake: Breeding Success, Nest Density, and Predation in the Snowy Plover (838K)
  1983 By Gary W. Page, Lynne E. Stenzel, David W. Winkler, and Christopher W. Swarth

• The Starling Appears at Leevining, Mono County, California (86K)
  1948 Elden H. Vestal

• Status of the California Gull Colony at Mono Lake, California (184K)
  1952 R. T. Young

• A Trip to Mono Lake, Ornithological and Otherwise (755K)
  1902 Walter K Fisher

• Chronology and Paleoclimate Records of the Late Pleistocene Wilson Creek Formation at Mono Lake, California
  Susan Herrgesell Zimmerman, 2006, Columbia University

• Geology of the Mono Craters
  From "Quaternary History of the Mono Valley, California", by Israel C. Russell. This report was first published in the Eighth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, 1889.

• Gravity Modeling of Black Point, a “Surtseyan” style Tuff Cone, near Mono Lake, California (62KB)
  Does not contain figures. Senior Thesis Project by Jim Schneider, B.S. Geology (University of California, Davis) 2001. Research advisor: Professor Peter Schiffman, Ph.D. , UCD Geology.

• Lahar in Glass Creek and Owens River during the Inyo eruption, Mono-Inyo Craters, California
  Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 131 (2004) 321-331. Authors: M. Bursik, Department of Geology, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA. J. Reid, School of Natural Science, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA 01002, USA

• Late Pleistocene Glaciation of Mono Basin, California
  Quaternary Research, 39, 24-35 (1993). Authors: Marcus I. Bursik, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91109 and Alan R. Gillespie, Remote Sensing Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195.

• Long Valley Caldera 2003 through 2014: Overview of low level unrest in the past decade
  U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2014–1222, 1 sheet. Authors: Wilkinson, S., Hill, D.P., Langbein, J.O., Lisowski, M., and Mangan, M., 2014.

• Mono Basin Geology and Hydrology (without 3 large maps)
  LADWP, March 1987

• The Southern Sierra Nevada Drip and the Mantle Wind Direction Beneath the Southwestern United States
  George Zandt, University of Arizona

• A volcanotectonic cascade: Activation of range front faulting and eruptions by dike intrusion, Mono Basin-Long Valley Caldera, California
  Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 108, No. B8, 2393 (2003). Authors: M. Bursik, C. Renshaw, J. McCalpin, and M. Berry

• A Water Balance Forecast Model for Mono Lake, California
  By Peter Vorster, May 1985
• Vorster Water Balance Forecast Model Review
  By David Keith Todd Consulting Engineers Inc., December 1984, pages H-23 to H-25 of The Hydrology of Mono Lake, Appendices: Volume II, A compilation of Basic Data Developed for State of California v. United States, Civil No. S-80-696, U.S.D.C., E.D. Cal.
• Estimated Use of Water in the U.S. in 2000
  By USGS, Circular 1268, revised May 2004
• Feasibility of Rejuvenating the West-side Springs of the Rush Creek Bottomlands, Mono County, California (650KB--note that the title page and bibliography are missing from this copy; contact author for these)
  By Scott Stine, CSU East Bay; and Peter Vorster
• Lower Rush Creek Flow Analysis (1.6 MB)
  By Bill Hasencamp, LADWP Aqueduct Division, September 28, 1994
• Mono Basin Stream & Stream Channel Restoration Plan, 1996 (8 MB)
  By LADWP for the SWRCB
• Mono Basin Stream Restoration and Monitoring Program: Synthesis of Instream Flow Recommendations ("Synthesis Report")
  By McBain & Trush and Ross Taylor & Associates, April 30, 2010
• Mono Basin Waterfowl Habitat Restoration Plan, 1996 (18 MB)
  By LADWP for the SWRCB (includes independent scientists' plan as an appendix)
• Restoration of Degraded Riparian, Wetland, and Deltaic Environments on Mill Creek, Mono County, CA, November 1995 (534KB)
  By Scott Stine
• Rewatering Channel 10 in the Rush Creek Bottomlands, Mono County, California (4.3 MB)
  By Scott M. English, Northwest Biological Consulting, December 1995
• Storage Capacity, Detention Time, and Selected Sediment Deposition Characteristics for Gull and Silver Lakes, Mono County, California. (2 MB)
  USGS Open-File Report 95-702
• Stratification and Mixing in Hypersaline Mono Lake, CA (7.3 MB)
  Jose Romero dissertation, December 1996
• Summer Thermal Characteristics of Grant Lake, 1993 Report by Trihey & Associates (27.5 MB)
• 50-Year DYRESM Simulations of Mono Lake with Different Water Management Scenarios (5.8 MB)
  By Jose Romero, 1992

• Grant Lake Operations and Management Plan (LADWP, 1996) (7 MB)

• Mono Basin Environmental Impact Report, 1993
  The Mono Basin EIR is a comprehensive study that was done by Jones & Stokes Associates between 1989 and 1993 for the Mono Basin Water Rights Hearings before the California State Water Resources Control Board. Special thanks to Jones & Stokes Associates for making this available in Adobe PDF format.

• Mono Basin Stream & Stream Channel Restoration Plan, 1996 (8 MB)
  By LADWP for the SWRCB

• Mono Basin Waterfowl Habitat Restoration Plan, 1996 (18 MB)
  By LADWP for the SWRCB (includes independent scientists' plan as an appendix)

• The Mono Lake Cases, 1995 (3 MB)
  By Richard Roos-Collins

• Mono Lake Shoulder Widening Environmental Assessment / Draft Environmental Impact Report, September 2003

• Working Out an Environmental Ethic: Anniversary Lessons from Mono Lake
  Tony Arnold, 2004, courtesy of the Wyoming Law Review

• Mono Basin Compliance Reporting to SWRCB by LADWP:
  May 2003  (25 MB)
  May 2004  (30 MB)
  May 2005  (160 MB)
  May 2006  (280 MB)
  May 2007: Cover Letter (0.2 MB) | Compliance (0.4 MB) | Operations (0.4 MB) | Fisheries (1.7 MB) | Geomorphology (10.4 MB) | Waterfowl (10.7 MB)
  May 2008: Cover Letter (0.6 MB) | Compliance (0.3 MB) | Operations (0.2 MB) | Fisheries (4.3 MB) | Geomorphology (1.3 MB) | Waterfowl (4.8 MB)
  May 2009: Cover Letter (1 MB) | Compliance (0.4 MB) | Operations (0.2 MB) | Fisheries (1.6 MB) | Geomorphology (2.8 MB) | Waterfowl (4.9 MB)
  May 2010: Cover Letter (0.7 MB) | Compliance (0.3 MB) | Operations (0.2 MB) | Fisheries (8.0 MB) | Tributaries (0.4 MB) | Waterfowl (15.1 MB)
  May 2011: Cover Letter (0.4 MB) | Compliance (0.7 MB) | Operations (1.2 MB) | Fisheries (16.8 MB) | Tributaries (1.1 MB) | Waterfowl (3.7 MB)
  May 2012: Cover Letter (0.5 MB) | Compliance (0.3 MB) | Operations (0.4 MB) | Fisheries (8.9 MB) | Tributaries (2.3 MB) | Waterfowl (3.3 MB)
  May 2013: Cover Letter (0.4 MB) | Compliance (0.3 MB) | Operations (0.5 MB) | Fisheries (7.1 MB) | Tributaries (1.1 MB) | Waterfowl (12.7 MB)
  May 2014: Cover Letter (0.1 MB) | Compliance (0.3 MB) | Operations (0.2 MB) | Fisheries (1.8 MB) | Waterfowl (4.6 MB)
  May 2015 (118 MB)
  May 2016 (13 MB)
  May 2017 (15 MB)
  May 2018 (138 MB)
  May 2019 (34 MB)
  May 2020 (47 MB)
  May 2021 (35 MB)
  May 2022 (38 MB)
  May 2023 (24 MB)
  May 2024 (40 MB)

Use data from the draft compliance reports with caution--they contain errors, are not peer-reviewed, and no errata are published.

• Economic Contribution of Mono Basin National Forest Scenic Area Designation, September 2012 (10 MB)
  By C. Alkire for The Wilderness Society

• The Los Angeles Water Plan 2008: Securing L.A.'s Water Supply
  Mayor Villaraigosa and LADWP

• The Mono Basin Ecosystem: Effects of Changing Lake Level (1987)
  By the National Research Council

• Mono Lake Northern Paiute Linguistics
  By M. Babel, M.J. Houser, M. Toosarvandani

• North Mono Basin Watershed/Landscape Analysis, 2001 and Appendices
  USFS draft document analyzing the northwest corner of the Mono Basin.

• Proposed GAZEX exploder locations on Lee Vining Hill, 2006 (564KB)
  By Caltrans

If you have reports or studies relevant to the Mono Basin in electronic form, and you'd like to see them added to this Website, please e-mail them to .