{"id":2143,"date":"2009-07-24T15:50:26","date_gmt":"2009-07-24T23:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?p=2143"},"modified":"2018-02-02T19:58:48","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T19:58:48","slug":"colorado-river-water-supply-threatened-after-2026-study-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2009\/07\/24\/colorado-river-water-supply-threatened-after-2026-study-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Threats to Colorado River Water Supply"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Photo: National Park Service<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Colorado River supplies water to\u00a0approximately\u00a027 \u00a0million people<\/a> in seven states and irrigates more than three million acres of farmland. In Southern California alone, it supplies 18 million\u00a0Metropolitan\u00a0Water District <\/a>customers\u00a0with 40 percent of their water.<\/a><\/p>\n

So last year, when a study<\/a> out of Scripps Institution of Oceanography <\/a>reported that there’s a 50 percent\u00a0chance that\u00a0the Colorado River’s largest reservoir (and the largest reservoir in the United States),\u00a0Lake Mead, will be dry by 2021, the news generated a lot of buzz.<\/a><\/p>\n

But a\u00a0new study<\/a> out from the University of Colorado Boulder finds that despite a 10-year drought\u00a0in the Colorado River system, the odds of draining the river’s delivery system before 2026 are pretty slim — below 10% in any given year.\u00a0 Researchers say this is primarily due to the massive reservoir storage capacity along the Colorado — more than 60 million acre feet, which includes Lake Mead.\u00a0 The reservoir system of the Colorado\u00a0is currently at 59 percent\u00a0of capacity, according to the study.<\/p>\n

But the scientists predict that by mid-century, the Colorado could become less reliable unless water-management strategies change.<\/p>\n

The researchers found that if climate change\u00a0causes a 10 percent reduction in the Colorado River\u2019s average stream flow as some recent studies predict ([PDF<\/a>]), the chances of fully depleting the system’s reservoirs will exceed 25 percent by 2057. \u00a0If\u00a0there is a\u00a020 percent reduction in stream flow, the chances of deleption rise to 50 percent.<\/p>\n

“On average, drying caused by climate change would increase the risk of fully depleting reservoir storage by nearly ten times more than the risk we expect from population pressures alone,” said lead study author Balaji Rajagopalan in a press release <\/a>about the study.<\/p>\n

The authors of the study conclude that the magnitude of the risk will depend not just on the amount of drying the region experiences, but also the types of water management and conservation strategies that are implemented in the near future.<\/p>\n

For the last decade, California\u2019s annual use of Colorado River water has varied from 4.5 to 5.2 million acre feet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo: Adrian Fogg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new study finds that despite a 10-year drought in the Colorado River system, the odds of draining the river’s delivery system before 2026 are pretty slim — below 10% in any given year. In Southern California alone, the Colorado River supplies 18 million Metropolitan Water District customers with 40 percent of their water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[133,321,473,654],"coauthors":[],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-2143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-water","tag-colorado-river","tag-lake-mead","tag-reservoir","tag-water"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"yoast_head":"\nThreats to Colorado River Water Supply | Climate Watch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2009\/07\/24\/colorado-river-water-supply-threatened-after-2026-study-says\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Threats to Colorado River Water Supply | Climate Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A new study finds that despite a 10-year drought in the Colorado River system, the odds of draining the river's delivery system before 2026 are pretty slim -- below 10% in any given year. 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