The headline message in the first iteration of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Colorado Basin supply-demand study is “9 percent”: Under the Downscaled GCM Projected scenario, the mean natural flow as measured at Lees Ferry over the next 50 years is projected to decrease by approximately 9 percent, along with a projected increase in both drought …
I’m headed up to Boulder this week for the University of Colorado Natural Resources Law Center’s “Navigating the Future of the Colorado River” conference (more from John McChesney here), then off from there to Sacramento and the Bay Area (with the kind support and assistance of Stanford’s Lane Center) to learn more about California’s water …
Happy to welcome Neil Singer’s “Wonders of Nuclear Fusion” to our UNM Press Worlds of Wonder family:
A big focus of my reporting on western water right now is process. It’s clear we have supply-demand imbalances. What are the processes by which we’ll respond? What successes have we had to date in creating institutional arrangements that can reduce use in response, and where and how have we failed (are we failing) to …
Continue reading ‘On the importance of stakeholder communication and buy-in’ »
It’s been a weird couple of days in Albuquerque. Last night, driving down from the foothills near sunset, I could see a thick haze building across the city, and by the time I got home I could smell smoke. Turns out it’s blowing up from a wildfire in southeastern Arizona (the Wallow, 106,000 acres at last …
USGS researcher Mike Dettinger, whose paper on “atmospheric rivers” (ARs) and climate variability in California I highlighted over the weekend, has a new paper in the June Journal of the American Water Resources Association looking at how climate change might influence the phenomenon in the future. AR’s dominate California’s precipitation (and water supply) delivering a …
Continue reading ‘Increased flood risk in California under climate change’ »
Oregon water doc and NRC Bay-Delta panel member today offers Californians some unsolicited advice: Memo to California: Regulate groundwater withdrawals on a statewide basis.
John McChesney has posted a great interview with Pat Mulroy, head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, about future directions for Colorado River management. She’s the most vocal proponent for mechanisms that might allow sharing of shortages among water users across the Colorado River basin, rather than a strict prior appropriation approach where junior users …
Continue reading ‘Mulroy: We don’t need to tear up the compact’ »