RiverWare Model Development and Support for Daily River Operations and Salinity Forecasting - U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Yuma Area Office

Yuma, Arizona

Hydros has worked with the Yuma Area Office (YAO) since 2010, helping guide the development, implementation, and refinement of several models, tools, and other utilities for daily operations and long-term-planning.  In addition, we have assisted the YAO in the use of these models for evaluating a variety of different operational and planning scenarios.  Some of the modeling tools developed by Hydros for the YAO include (but are not limited to):

  • An hourly-timestep RiveWare model for daily operations and scheduling of the Colorado River from Parker Dam to Imperial Dam,

  • A MODFLOW model for groundwater modeling in the Yuma area,

  • A monthly-timestep RiverWare model for annual forecasting of the IBWC Minute No. 242 cumulative annual salinity differential between Imperial Dam and the Northerly International Boundary with the Republic of Mexico (NIB),

  • A RiverWare model used to estimate the annual volume of water conserved by Brock Reservoir for Lower Colorado River Accounting purposes, and

  • A CE-QUAL-W2 model of Lake Mead to forecast TDS concentrations at Hoover Dam over the 24-month study period.

Hydros continues to work with the YAO on a near-daily basis to provide user support for daily scheduling, continued model development and enhancements, annual salinity forecasting, and scenario development.