On Thursday, June 18, 2020 at 1:00 PM EDT (11:00 AM MDT), Jeff Lukas and Liz Payton from the Western Water Assessment (WWA), a CPO Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) team, will host a webinar providing an overview of the recently released report, “Colorado River Basin Climate and Hydrology: State of the Science,” followed by Q&A.
In recent decades, increasing water demand, dry conditions, and warming temperatures have impacted the Colorado River, creating greater uncertainty about the future of the basin’s water supply. The report is the most comprehensive ever produced about the Colorado River and aims to create a shared understanding of the physical setting and the latest data, tools, and research underpinning the management of its water resources. With support and guidance from more than a dozen federal, state, and local water agencies, the 17-author team led by WWA’s Lukas and Payton integrated nearly 800 peer-reviewed studies, agency reports and other sources to assess the state of the science and the technical methods relevant to managing water resources in the Colorado River Basin. Co-authors and contributors notably include two fellow RISA teams (CLIMAS & CNAP), NOAA’s Physical Science Laboratory, two NOAA cooperative institutes (CIMAS & CIRES), the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Center, the National Weather Service’s Colorado River Basin Forecast Center, USGS, NASA, NCAR, and many university partners.
