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About

Figure 1. Representation of the different models and data, and their underlying science, applied to decision-making in the Colorado River Basin. (Design: J. Lukas, adapted from L. Payton; basin map by Western Water Assessment (L. Woelders); thumbnail images from University of Washington VIC group, NOAA Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, and Reclamation)

The Colorado River Science Wiki is being created to provide a web-based clearinghouse for scientific and technical information and data relevant to the Colorado River Basin and management of its water resources and related natural resources. This clearinghouse is intended to be useful to managers and other decision-makers, to researchers, to the media, and to the broader public. Its objectives are to:

• Share recent and ongoing Colorado River research efforts and findings
• Provide up-to-date synthesis of the science relevant to management
• Allow one-stop access to key technical datasets and data tools
• Provide guidance for the ongoing Interim Guidelines renegotiation
• Engage the greater Colorado River community in a joint information-gathering effort

As of February 2022, the Wiki is still in the early stages of development. We welcome your comments and questions; please see the contact information at the bottom of this page.

Outline

Below is the outline of topics to be covered (eventually) by the Wiki. Our intention is to have a separate page for each topic (the bullet items in the lists below), though multiple topics may end up being combined on one page.

As pages are developed, links to them will be activated in the topic outline below.

There are 6 sections, which can be accessed by the navigation on the left of the page.

1) Science and applications

This section will comprise the bulk of the Wiki.

Each page will contain the following content, as appropriate:

• Summary description of the topic
• The topic's relevance to Colorado River water management
• Annotated links to datasets, tools, and other resources on that topic
• New research on that topic (since 2020)

The content on datasets and tools, and on new research, is also compiled and made available in Sections 2 and 3 of the Wiki, respectively.

Topics:

Cross-cutting reports

• 2021 SECURE Water Act reports
• 2020 CRB State of the Science
• 2018 CRB Ten Tribes Partnership Tribal Water Study
• 2012 Colorado River Basin Study

Weather and climate

• Climate patterns and variability
• Recent climate change
• Weather and climate monitoring
• Weather and climate forecasts
• Projected future climate
• Colorado River extremes

Hydrology and water availability

• Water balance and basin water budget
• Snowpack
• Soil moisture
• Evapotranspiration (ET)
• Groundwater
• Streamflow
• Paleohydrology
• Hydrologic variability and trends
• Seasonal streamflow forecasts
• Droughts
• Floods
• Channel dynamics
• Hydrologic modeling
• Projected future hydrology

Water operations and planning

• Reservoirs and infrastructure
• Operating guidelines and rules
• River system models
  • Colorado River Mid-term Modeling System (CRMMS)
  • Colorado River Simulation System (CRSS)
• Planning approaches

Water Use

• Consumptive uses and losses
  • Agricultural water use
  • Municipal water use
  • Reservoir evaporation
  • Channel and bank losses
• Instream flows
• Demand accounting and scenarios
• Future basin demand

Water quality

• Salinity
• Metals and acid mine drainage
• Other contaminants

Geomorphology and sediment

• Erosion and sediment sources
• Riverbed sediment dynamics
• Reservoir sedimentation

Ecosystems and environment

• Vegetation change
• Wildfires
• Insect infestations and disease
• Tamarisk and invasive plants
• Threatened and endangered fish species
• Invasive mussels
• Traditional Ecological Knowledge
• Salton Sea
• Colorado River Delta

Societal and economic issues

• Benefits of water
• Impacts of shortage and drought
• Social inequity and vulnerability

2) Data and tools

This section--a single page--will collate all of the annotated links to the datasets and tools from Section 1, and make them available in one place.

3) New research

Likewise, this section--also a single page--will collate all of the summaries and links to new studies and reports from Section 1, and make them available in one place.

4) Water law and policy

While this Wiki is focused on the science and its application to water management in the Colorado River Basin, it is helpful to describe the legal and policy setting in which those applications are implemented. Note that no policy preferences or prescriptions are implied by the inclusion (or exclusion) of any information in this section.

• Overview
• Prior appropriation
• Law of the River
• Other policy
• Renegotiation of Interim Guidelines
• Commentary on policy

5) Who's who

Scientific research relevant to the basin, and its subsequent applications, involve thousands of individuals at hundreds of different organizations. This section identifies many of the key players in the science-to-applications (aka science-to-operations) chain in the basin, and provides links to homepages and other resources.

• Overview
• Researchers
  • University
    • Ongoing projects/centers
  • Agency
  • Other
• Operations/decision-making
• Forecasters
• Water Managers
• Water Users
• Other Groups

6) Introduction to the Basin

This section is mainly intended for users who are not familiar with the Colorado River Basin. For those users who are--who knows, you still might learn something.

• Basin overview
• Physical setting
• Human setting

Contact

The initial development of the Wiki is being carried out by Brad Udall (Colorado Water Center, Colorado State University), Julie Vano (Aspen Global Change Institute), and Jeff Lukas (Lukas Climate Research and Consulting).

Please contact Brad (Bradley.udall @ colostate.edu) for more information.

To obtain a login to allow editing, please contact the site administrator below.

Edits are subject to review and will not be made public until approved.