Rajagopalan, Balaji听1听;听Nowak, Kenneth听2听;听Prairie, James听3听;听Hoerling, Martin4听;听Harding, Benjamin听5听;听Barsugli, Joseph听6听;听Ray, Andrea听7听;听Udall, Bradley听8
2听Presenting Author
1听Department of Civil Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA
2听Department of Civil Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA
3听Bureau of Reclamation, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA
4听NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO 80305 USA
5听AMEC Earth & Environmental, Inc., Boulder, CO 80302 USA
6听NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO 80305 USA
7听NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO 80305 USA
8听Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA
With climate change looming, continued population growth, and the likelihood of multi-year droughts, the future reliability of Colorado River water supply is in question. We assess the risk to Colorado River water supply for the next 50 years (2008-2057). Under current practices in the absence of climate change we find a 5% risk of reservoir depletion through 2026 increasing to 9% by 2057, demonstrating resilience to demand growth and natural climate variability. A 20% reduction in Colorado River average flow due to climate change by 2057, increases risk through 2026 to less than 12%, but greatly increases risk to 52% in 2057. However, we find management alternatives can greatly reduce risk 鈥� under aggressive management the risk reduces to 32%. A lower rate of climate change induced flow reduction, demand adaptation and aggressive management can further reduce the risk to around 10% - suggesting substantial flexibility in existing management could mitigate the increased risk.