Metrics Data for Quantifying Multidimensional Impacts of Landscape Change in California's Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta

SUMMARYThese data represent estimated mean value, standard error, and units for a range of metrics by land cover class in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Metrics are grouped into three major categories: Agricultural Livelihoods (including metrics for gross production value, number of agricultural jobs, and annual wages per employee), Water Quality (in terms of the application rates for pesticides identified as critical pesticides, groundwater contaminants, and those posing a high or moderate risk to aquatic organisms, as well as Nitrogen loading rates), and Climate Change Resilience (qualitative scores representing relative tolerance for heat, drought, and flood). DESCRIPTIONThese data were developed to facilitate projecting the net impacts of land cover change scenarios on multiple metrics of interest to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, including potential benefits and trade-offs. They were used in initial analyses of scenarios representing habitat restoration and perennial crop expansion, and they are required for using the R package "DeltaMultipleBenefits", which provides the code and work flow for repeating the initial analyses or analyzing new scenarios. For additional details about the development and applications of these data, please see: Dybala KE, Reiter M, Hickey C, Gardali T (2025) Multiple-benefit Conservation in Practice: A Framework for Quantifying Multi-dimensional Impacts of Landscape Change in California’s Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta. San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science 23(2). doi:10.15447/sfews.2025v23iss2art2. Available from: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/388196xc These data are also available within the DeltaMultipleBenefits R package, available from: https://pointblue.github.io/DeltaMultipleBenefits. CHANGES FROM V1 Addition of Nitrogen loading metrics, which were later incorporated into the published manuscript Update to some values in CODE_NAME for individual land cover classes, to align with recent (2026) changes to the land cover class scheme and vegetation key provided in the DeltaMultipleBenefits R package (v2.0.0) Addition of CODE_NUM field corresponding to CODE_NAME, for ease in aligning with land cover rasters FUNDING STATEMENTThese data were originally developed as part of the project "Trade-offs and Co-benefits of Landscape Change on Bird Communities and Ecosystem Services in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta", funded by Proposition 1 Delta Water Quality and Ecosystem Restoration Program, Grant Agreement Number – Q1996022, administered by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. POINT OF CONTACTKristen Dybala, Point Blue Conservation Science, [e-mail] DATA DISTRIBUTIONZenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20944836) DATEThese data were compiled in 2022, based on data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages 2014-2020 (EDD 2022), annual County Agricultural Commissioners Reports 2014-2020 (CDFA 2022), Pesticide Use Report Data 2014-2018 (CDPR 2022), Nitrogen loading estimates (Harter et al. 2017), and qualitative assessments of climate change resilience (Peterson et al. 2020, DSC 2021). Literature Cited: CDFA. 2022. County Ag Commissioners’ Data Listing. California Department of Food & Agriculture. Available from: https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/AgComm/index.php CDPR. 2022. Pesticide Use Report Data. California Department of Pesticide Regulation. Available from: https://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/pur/purmain.htm DSC. 2021. Delta Adapts: Creating a Climate Resilient Future. Public Review Draft. Delta Stewardship Council. Available from https://deltacouncil.ca.gov/delta-plan/climate-change EDD. 2022. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). California Employment Development Department. Available from: https://data.edd.ca.gov/Industry-Information-/Quarterly-Census-of-Employment-and-Wages-QCEW-/fisq-v939 Harter, T., K. Dzurella, G. Kourakos, A. Bell, A. King, and A. Hollander. 2017. Nitrogen Fertilizer Loading to Groundwater in the Central Valley. Final Report to the Fertilizer Research Education Program, Projects 11‐0301 and 15‐0454. Page 333. California Department of Food and Agriculture and University of California, Davis. Available from: https://ucanr.edu/sites/groundwaternitrate/files/383510.pdf Peterson C, Marvinney E, Dybala K. 2020. Multiple Benefits from Agricultural and Natural Land Covers in the Central Valley, CA. Migratory Bird Conservation Partnership, Sacramento, CA. Dryad Dataset doi:10.25338/B8061X FIELD DEFINITIONS METRIC_CATEGORY: Broad grouping assigned to each METRIC; one of Agricultural Livelihoods, Water Quality, or Climate Change Resilience METRIC: Specific metric being estimated; one of Agricultural Jobs, Annual Wages, Gross Production Value, Drought, Flood, Heat, Critical Pesticides, Groundwater Contaminant, or Risk to Aquatic Organisms UNIT: The units in which the METRIC is estimated CODE_NUM: Unique identification number corresponding to CODE_NAME CODE_NAME: The land cover class or subclass for which the METRIC is estimated LABEL: A more user-friendly version of CODE_NAME, useful for creating figures and tables SCORE_MEAN: The mean value of each METRIC estimated for each land cover class or subclass SCORE_SE: The standard error of the mean ABBREVIATION DEFINITIONS FTE: full-time equivalents; refers to converting monthly agricultural jobs data to annual estimates by dividing by 12 ha: hectares kg: kilograms USD: U.S. dollars yr: year ACCESS & USE CONSTRAINTSCC-by-4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) KEYWORDS Themes: agriculture, livelihoods, economy, water quality, pesticides, climate change, resilience, multiple-benefit conservation Place: Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, Central Valley, California