The Water‐Year Water Balance of the Colorado River Basin

McCabe, Gregory J.; Wolock, David M.

doi:10.1111/1752-1688.12848

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Approximately 85%–90% of the total water year runoff in the CRB starts in the UCRB (McCabe & Wolock, 2020). On average, over half (56%) of the UCRB (Figure 1) streamflow originates as baseflow, a proxy for groundwater discharge to streams across the full discharge distribution, highlighting the importance of baseflow in sustaining surface water (Miller et al., 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Will Baseflow Respond to Climate Change in the Upper Colorado River Basin?

Miller

Longley

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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The southwestern United States has substantially changed since 1900, with warming temperatures, diminishing precipitation and streamflows, worsening drought, and growth in population, irrigated agricultural land, and water withdrawals (MacDonald, 2010). The region is currently experiencing its worst drought in recorded history, with the period from 2000 to 2018 being the driest 19-year period since the late 1500s and the second driest since 800 Common Era (Williams et al., 2020). Despite little change in precipitation in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB) between 1896 and 2019, temperatures have risen (Tillman et al., 2020) and water supplies in the basin have suffered (Udall & Overpeck, 2017). This recent drought has strained water resources and led to Congress passing the Colorado River Basin Drought Contingency Plan (DCP) Authorization Act in 2019. The DCP outlines agreements for Colorado River Basin (CRB) stakeholders to collaborate to reduce the risk that large Colorado River reservoirs (Lake Powell and Lake Mead) decline to critically low elevations. Despite these efforts, both reservoirs reached historic low elevations in 2021 (Bureau of Reclamation, 2021a, 2021b).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Will Baseflow Respond to Climate Change in the Upper Colorado River Basin?

Miller

Longley

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…Quantifying process drivers of beetle kill impacts remains critical to predicting streamflow effects. Increased runoff ratios due to spruce beetle kill may buffer streamflow in some basins from declines caused by warming temperatures, higher atmospheric water demand, reduced land surface albedo, and other climate changes (McCabe & Wolock, 2020; Milly & Dunne, 2020; Udall & Overpeck, 2017; Woodhouse et al., 2016). If such buffering effects exist, they will likely decrease over time as food source reduction slows beetle activity (Hart et al., 2015) and vegetation regrows (Millar et al., 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Transpiration from conifer forests is a primary term in the water budget that is expected to respond to climate change (Lehner et al., 2017; McCabe & Wolock, 2020), and beetle kill impacts on transpiration contribute substantial uncertainty to these changes. Modulating this uncertainty are interactions between characteristics of subbasin‐scale and basin‐scale processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spruce Beetle Outbreak Increases Streamflow From Snow‐Dominated Basins in Southwest Colorado, USA

Manning

Harpold

Csank

2022

Water Resources Research

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Disturbance of mountain forests, which supply critical streamflow to downstream water users, remains an active area of research (NRC, 2008) with substantial implications on large-scale water availability and carbon budgets (Williams et al., 2016(Williams et al., , 2022Zhang et al., 2017). Recent insect outbreaks have caused widespread forest mortality in snow-dominated basins in the Western US (Goeking & Tarboton, 2020;Meddens et al., 2012). Bark beetles, in particular spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) and mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), have affected approximately 58.8 million acres of coniferous forest in the region since 2000 (USDA Forest Service, 2020). Bark beetle population growth over the last several decades has been attributed to increased reproduction rates (Mitton & Ferrenberg, 2012) and warmer air temperatures (Pettit et al., 2020). Bark beetles and associated secondary fungal infections restrict water uptake and kill host trees over the course of a growing season (Frank et al., 2014;Hubbard et al., 2013). Dead host trees drop their needles over one to 3 years, but in contrast to trees affected by logging and stand-replacing fire, they can remain standing for many years (Rhodes et al., 2020).

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“…The Upper CRB contains most of the headwaters of the Colorado River and is responsible for most of the runoff in the basin. The Lower CRB constitutes the strongly regulated downstream section (McCabe & Wolock, 2020).…”

Section: The Colorado River Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For this purpose, we utilize the high quality naturalized streamflow available for a long period (1904-till date) over the entire CRB (Prairie & Callejo, 2005). Further, the CRB is one of the highest regulated basins in the United States of America (US) with multiple cascading reservoirs altering the natural flow regime (McCabe & Wolock, 2020) and one of the most important sources of water for the southwestern US (USBR, 2012). The reservoirs in the CRB serve multiple purposes-generating hydropower, supplying water for consumptive uses such as agriculture and municipal supply, and controlling spring/summer floods-thereby providing the critical resource, but are also affecting the flow regime at various time scales and river ecology.…”

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confidence: 99%

Dynamic Flow Alteration Index for Complex River Networks With Cascading Reservoir Systems

Kumar

Hwang

Devineni

et al. 2021

Water Resources Research

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The natural flow regime of a river is defined by the characteristic pattern of the streamflow variability (Poff et al., 1997). The natural flow regime impacts the riverine habitat, biodiversity, water quality, and overall river ecosystem health (Poff et al., 1997). The alteration of the flow regime is a major factor in degrading the river ecosystem (Poff et al., 2010). The flow regime may change due to human intervention through dams, barrages, land-use and land-cover changes, and changes in the region's hydroclimatology. The world's rivers are regulated through an estimated 2.8 million dams (Lehner et al., 2011) for meeting various human needs such as municipal water supply, flood control, irrigation water supply, and recreational uses. Such regulations alter streamflow in various time scales-hydropeaking alters flow at hourly time scales whereas low flow augmentation affects summer flows, and inter-basin transfers impact the flows over long-term (annual and beyond) (Alonso et al., 2017;Bunn & Arthington, 2002;Stanford & Ward, 1979). The various kinds of flow regulation introduced by these dams have adverse ecological consequences (Poff et al., 1997) as they fragment aquatic habitats (Nilsson et al., 2005) and hinder the movement of species, nutrients, and sediments along the stream (Lehner et al., 2011). Furthermore, such alteration affects the river regime in multiple forms by propagating through river networks multiple ways such as by destabilizing channel morphology (Graf, 2006), by altering the composition and dynamics of aquatic biota (Poff et al., 2007), and by reducing sediment transport (Lehner et al., 2011).Reservoir regulation has been studied over many decades (

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The Water‐Year Water Balance of the Colorado River Basin

Abstract: This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as

Cited by 10 publications

References 28 publications

How Will Baseflow Respond to Climate Change in the Upper Colorado River Basin?

How Will Baseflow Respond to Climate Change in the Upper Colorado River Basin?

Spruce Beetle Outbreak Increases Streamflow From Snow‐Dominated Basins in Southwest Colorado, USA

Dynamic Flow Alteration Index for Complex River Networks With Cascading Reservoir Systems

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