Colorado River Studies

Colorado River

Hydros staff have a long history of involvement in Colorado River Basin issues, both as academic research projects and as consultants to various water management organizations in the basin, stretching back to the early 1990s. Recent and notable work has included:

  1. For the Upper Colorado River Commission (UCRC), Hydros modified Reclamation’s Colorado River Simulation System (CRSS) to test proposed Upper Basin actions contemplated as part of the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan. These modifications were adopted and incorporated into CRSS by Reclamation and are used to simulate Drought Response Operating Agreement (DROA) activities.

  2. For the Colorado River District, Hydros has provided modeling expertise both basin-wide and within the State of Colorado, evaluating risk and uncertainty related to the ongoing drought and likelihood of reaching critical operating thresholds at Lake Powell and Lee Ferry.  The most recent iteration of this work was Phase IV of the Colorado River Risk Study completed in 2023.

  3. For the Colorado River District and Southwestern Water Conservation District, Hydros has performed a number of analyses looking at the distribution of pre- and post-compact water use in State water divisions and districts. This work focused on quantifying potential curtailment volumes under a hypothetical compact call, and analyzed the distribution of post-compact water use by basin and across the State.

  4. Hydros assisted a number of water management organizations, NGOs, and Reclamation during the Colorado River Basin Study, which culminated in 2012. These projects included incorporation of “non-traditional” water use metrics into evaluation criteria for study scenarios, and development of pre- and post-processing tools for incorporating new data and metrics into the analysis of options for meeting simulated water supply shortfalls.

  5. Hydros has worked with Reclamation’s Yuma Area Office for more than a decade, helping them better manage water deliveries, perform salinity modeling, and develop detailed ground water models.