Stochastic Decadal Projections of Colorado River Streamflow and Reservoir Pool Elevations Conditioned on Temperature Projections

Abstract

The Colorado River Basin (CRB) is a heterogeneous, dynamic river basin that is a key source of water for tens of millions of people in the southwestern United States and Northwest Mexico. The CRB supports agriculture, hydropower, recreation, ecosystems, drinking water, etc. and boasts a storage capacity of ∼60 million acre-feet (MAF), or ∼4 years' worth of average annual flow (USBR, 2012). This storage is critical in light of the high variability in Colorado River annual flow (Figure 1) and its susceptibility to multiyear droughts (Nowak et al., 2012). Intricate legal frameworks, trans-basin diversions, growing populations, as well as overallocation pose additional challenges for the CRB's water resource systems. There are many studies that try to provide clarity on future CRB flows using a variety of models and methods, but these approaches can exhibit significant variability and

The Colorado River Basin Operational Prediction Testbed: A Framework for Evaluating Streamflow Forecasts and Reservoir Operations

“…Reclamation is already using CRBOPT for various other research projects aimed at improving reservoir system projections in the CRB (e.g., Woodson et al. 2021; Towler et al. 2022).…”

“…2021; Woodson et al. 2021; Towler et al. 2022), it has proven difficult to incorporate new approaches that might improve projections of future CRB system conditions without an effective and quantitative way to assess the new methods' potential value to reservoir operations.…”