Future of the Colorado River Project

Goals

This project explores alternative Colorado River water supply and river management strategies. Our goals are threefold:

  • To develop new tools and approaches by which the river-ecosystem outcomes of water-supply decisions can be considered;
  • To explicitly evaluate a range of water-supply management approaches that meet water-supply security and reliability needs of Colorado River water users; and,
  • To identify, articulate, and evaluate alternative water-supply management approaches offered by traditional and non-traditional Colorado River stakeholders. Evaluations will be conducted from the perspectives of water supply and of river ecosystems, using traditional and non-traditional modeling approaches.

This project is being conducted in recognition of the impending re-negotiation of the Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and Coordinated Operations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Formal discussion of those Guidelines is to begin in 2020. The Future of the Colorado River (FCR) project is organized within the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.

Publications

White Paper 1: Fill Mead First: A Technical Assessement

The Fill Mead First (FMF) plan would establish Lake Mead reservoir as the primary water storage facility of the main-stem Colorado River and would relegate Lake Powell reservoir to a secondary water storage facility to be used only when Lake Mead is full....