A Land Made from Water: Appropriation and the Evolution of Colorado's Landscape, Ditches, and Water Institutions

Abstract

Timelines and Baselines 4 The First Americans and the Legacy of Coronado 5 Major Stephen Harriman Long and the United States Topographical Engineers 9 John C. Fremont and the Corps of Topographical Engineers 12 two Juggernaut of Change 19

Urbanization and Water Management Control Stream Water Quality Along a Mountain to Plains Transition

“…Groundwater levels in urban areas may be elevated by the introduction of water from other regions (Oswald et al., 2023; Paliwal & Baghela, 2007), affecting flux of subusurface water. Water storage in small ponds and reservoirs (which are often remnants of gravel mining; Crifasi, 2005, 2015) at or near the mouths of tributaries that enter BC in the urban area (Figure 1) capture sediment from runoff and increase biogeochemical reactions between sediment and water and in the water column. These reservoirs increase local ground water level, often leading to wetlands (Figure 1).…”

“…Downstream of these reservoirs, the streams flow through steep canyons before discharging onto the plains. Here, a complex network of regulated diversions remove varying amounts of water for municipal, industrial, and agricultural use based on water rights and daily streamflow (Crifasi, 2015). As a result, stream discharge varies widely both temporally and spatially along Boulder Creek; at some points nearly all the water in the creek is diverted out of the channel (Murphy, 2006; Murphy et al., 2003).…”

“…Water storage in small ponds and reservoirs (which are often remnants of gravel mining; Crifasi, 2005Crifasi, , 2015 at or near the mouths of tributaries that enter BC in the urban area (Figure 1) capture sediment from runoff and increase biogeochemical reactions between sediment and water and in the water column. These reservoirs increase local ground water level, often leading to wetlands (Figure 1).…”

“…Land cover shifts abruptly from forest to developed urban land at the mountain/plains interface of Boulder Creek; in contrast, after emerging from the mountains, South Boulder Creek primarily flows through grasslands and wetlands before entering urban land and converging with Boulder Creek. The presence of wetlands in the plains reach of the study area (Figure 1) is often a result of water storage or conveyance through the landscape (Crifasi, 2005(Crifasi, , 2015. The Boulder Creek watershed has 12% urban land cover, whereas the South Boulder Creek watershed has 3.9% urban land cover (both percentages are based on area upstream of their confluence) (Kukkola et al, 2023).…”

Ecohydrologic Dynamics of Rock Moisture in a Montane Catchment of the Colorado Front Range

“…Gordon Gulch is a 2.6 km 2 , headwater catchment located at ∼2,700 m above mean sea level in the semi‐arid, upper montane zone of the Boulder Creek Watershed, Colorado, USA (40.028 N, 105.488 W) (Figure 1). Gordon Gulch is within the traditional territories of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute peoples and until Euro‐American colonization, served as critical winter camping territory (Crifasi, 2015). Gordon Gulch receives an average of 527 mm of precipitation per year, peaking between April and June.…”