Current Water Management Practices and the Effects of Climate Change on the Colorado River Basin

The Colorado River Basin (CRB) reservoir system is one of the most over-allocated systems in the world. Due to recent drought conditions within the past decade, reservoir storage has been decreasing and shows no sign of increasing in the near future. The allocated demands from the system are greater than the average streamflow into the system. Furthermore, it is expected that climate change will only make the situation more severe in the near future. Various modeling techniques show that climate change will decrease precipitation in the CRB while increasing evaporation. This combination results in decreased runoff and streamflow which provides the majority of water in the CRB. However, the more significant problem is the over-allocation of the river. The allocations and water usage can be controlled much easier and have a much greater impact on the reliability of the reservoir system than global climate change. This paper will highlight some of the major flaws in the water allocations utilized in the CRB and reasons for mistakes made in the past. Previous studies on the reliability of the CRB reservoir system are investigated, and the general impacts of climate change on the hydrologic cycle are briefly discussed.