Science and applications
Overview
This section of the wiki covers a broad set of science topics and the application of that science to Colorado River management.
Each page contains 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
- Research directions (ongoing and potential) for that topic
- New research on that topic (since 2020)
Topics:
Weather and climate
- Past and current climate
- Mechanisms & spatial patterns
- Variability & trends over time
- Paleoclimate
- Recent trends & climate change
- Climate monitoring
- Weather station networks
- Errors and adjustments
- Gridded climate products
- Drought monitoring
- Weather station networks
- Weather and climate forecasts
- Overview
- Weather forecasts
- Subseasonal forecasts
- Seasonal forecasts
- Decadal climate forecasts
- Future climate
- Fundamentals of climate change
- Climate models
- Downscaling
- Projected future climate
Hydrology and water availability
- Water balance and basin water budget
- Snowpack
- Snowpack processes & patterns
- Snowpack monitoring
- Dust-on-snow
- Cloud seeding
- Soil moisture
- Soil moisture monitoring
- Evaporation and evaporative demand
- Groundwater
- Streamflow
- Paleohydrology
- Historical (gaged) records
- Adjusted streamflow
- BoR Natural Flows
- Other naturalized
- Variability & trends over time
- Recent trends & climate change
- Real-time streamflows
- Seasonal streamflow forecasts
- Droughts
- Dynamics/causes
- Impacts
- Historic droughts
- Paleodroughts
- Megadrought
- Floods
- Historic
- Paleofloods
- Channel dynamics
- Hydrologic modeling
- Water operations and planning
- Reservoirs and infrastructure
- Operating rules
- River system models
- 24-Month Study
- MTOM
- CRSS
- Other models used in the basin
- Planning approaches
- Future hydrology and water availability
- Methods
- Future streamflow changes
- Other hydrology changes
- Synthesis: Future basin water availability
Water Use
- Agricultural water use
- ET measurement
- Conservation strategies
- Municipal water use
- Conservation strategies
- Environmental/instream water use
- Other depletions
- Reservoir evaporation
- Channel/bank losses
- Phreatophytic vegetation
- Demand accounting and scenarios
- State/basin reports
- Demand schedules
- Other demand scenarios
- Synthesis: Future basin demand
Water quality and sediment
- Salinity
- Salinity monitoring
- Salinity control measures
- Other contaminants
- Uranium mining/tailings
- Sediment
- Erosion/sediment sources
- Reservoir sedimentation
- Riverbed sediment dynamics
Ecosystems and environment
- Overview
- Forests
- Disturbances
- Wildfires
- Insect infestations/disease
- Disturbances
- Riparian
- Tamarisk and invasive plants
- Aquatic
- T&E fish species
- Upper Basin
- Lower Basin
- Invasive mussels
- T&E fish species
- Specific hot spots
- Salton Sea
- Colorado River Delta
Societal and economic issues
- Benefits of water
- Impacts of shortage and drought
- Social inequity and vulnerability
- Other