Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Science Rendezvous > Posters
The presenter is listed in italics. All poster presentations are the property of their respective authors. Please contact the authors for permission to use images, information, or ideas.

Climate, Growth and Drought Threat to Colorado River Water Supply

Balaji Rajagopalan(1,2), Kenneth Nowak(1), James Prairie(3), Martin Hoerling(4), Benjamin Harding(5), Joseph Barsugli(2,4), Andrea Ray(4) and Bradley Udall(2,4)

(1)Department of Civil Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA (2)Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA (3)Bureau of Reclamation, Un

With climate change looming, continued population growth, and the likelihood of multi-year droughts, the future reliability of Colorado River water supply is in question. We assess the risk to Colorado River water supply for the next 50 years (2008-2057). Under current practices, in the absence of climate change, we find a 5% risk of reservoir depletion through 2026 increasing to 9% by 2057, demonstrating resilience to demand growth and natural climate variability. A 20% reduction in Colorado River average flow due to climate change by 2057, increases risk through 2026 to less than 12%, but greatly increases risk to 52% in 2057. However, we find management alternatives can greatly reduce risk – under aggressive management the risk reduces to 32%. A lower rate of climate change induced flow reduction, demand adaptation and aggressive management can further reduce the risk to around 10% - suggesting substantial flexibility in existing management could mitigate the increased risk.