COLORADO RIVER DROUGHT CONTINGENCY PLANNING
Brad Udall
Senior Water and Climate Research Scientist/Scholar, Colorado Water Institute, Colorado State University
Friday, October 21, 2016
The Colorado River Basin encompasses seven states and northern Mexico and is home to 22 federally recognized tribes. The river provides municipal and industrial water for 40m people distributed across every major Southwestern city both within and without the basin, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Salt Lake City, Denver and the entire Front Range of Colorado, Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Since 2000, the river has been in an unprecedented drought with flows during 2000-2014 down approximately 20% compared to the 20th century average. Lakes Mead and Powell, the two largest reservoirs in the U.S, are down more than 55% compared to 2000. There is clearly a climate change component to this drought with recent temperatures about 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average resulting in up to half of the current flow loss. Both the Upper Basin states (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico) and the Lower Basin states (Arizona, California, Nevada) are developing contingency plans for the river. In the case of Lower Basin, a declared shortage in the next few years, the first ever, is expected to have serious impacts on Arizona. In the case of the Upper Basin, required deliveries to the Lower Basin would impact major cities including all of Colorado’s Front Range.
