A Colorado River Basin Wiki for Decision Makers, Scientists, the Press and the Public: www.coloradoriverscience.org

Abstract:

The Colorado River supplies water to over 40M people in seven states and two nations. The states, the federal government, and twenty-nine different tribes share jurisdiction over the waters of the river. Every major Southwestern city and important agricultural entities that produce much of the nation’s winter vegetables are heavily reliant on these supplies. The current operational rules for managing the river, agreed to in 2007 by the seven Basin States and by the Federal government, will expire in 2026. Consultation on the new post-2026 rules will begin in 2020 and likely last until 2025. This extensive multi-year renegotiation will generate a federal Environmental Impact Statement leading to a Record of Decision. The new agreement will take effect in 2027 and is likely to last until mid-century or later.

Understanding the science around the past, current and future climate and hydrology of the basin will be a critical input to this process. Since 2000 the river has been in a prolonged drought with the flow averaging about 20% less than the 20^th century average. The major reservoirs – Lakes Powell and Mead -- are now less than half full. Multiple peer-reviewed papers have found that warmer temperatures (Udall & Overpeck, 2017; Woodhouse et al., 2016; Xiao et al., 2018) and possibly precipitation declines (Hoerling et al., 2019) due to climate change have caused up to half the flow loss with changes in precipitation patterns and amounts explaining the remainder. In addition, continued 21^st century warming is expected to further reduce the flow by up to 35% at mid-century (Milly & Dunne, 2020; Udall & Overpeck, 2017).

Few people, even highly knowledgeable individuals, know where to find all of the diverse information about the wide range of scientific topics applicable to the basin. Data, models, scientific papers, runoff forecasts for example are scattered among many different websites and navigating those sites can be a challenge. New information is released on a dizzying time scale that makes it hard for even well-intentioned individuals to stay up to date. And while important and useful synthesis efforts do occur (Lukas et al., 2014, 2020; Ray et al., 2008; Vano et al., 2014), they occur infrequently and then slowly become outdated.

The first goal of this effort is to provide an ongoing mechanism for the sharing of important past and future scientific efforts relating to the Colorado River. A second goal is to provide scientific synthesis of the collected information. This information will be valuable for decision makers, tribes, water users, scientists, the press and the general public. A third goal is to provide on-going scientific assessment of the impacts of climate change on the basin. This information should be useful for future assessments of all kinds, including the National Climate Assessment. A final goal is to engage the greater Colorado River Community in a joint information gathering effort.

The key deliverable will be a functioning populated wiki containing tools, articles, datasets, and other information. The wiki will be editable by approved users.

Our main deliverable will support a number of objectives. For scientists, we will provide a portal that will allow navigation of the ever-growing array of information on the basin including critical datasets, while also providing a way to publicize their work more broadly rather than just in scientific journals. For decision makers, we hope to provide a portal that condenses and synthesizes scientific work as it is produced as well as provides a way to find and navigate other important websites with climate-related information. For the press, we will provide a way to quickly access key documents, including ones recently released.