Work with Upper Colorado reservoir managers to improve the relevance, use, and value of climate information

Potential use of climate information to improve annual reservoir operating plans.

In the Upper Colorado River basin, user studies have focused on the potential use of climate information to improve annual reservoir operating plans. In contrast to the frequently used sector focus, this project uses a problem-oriented approach to identify issues that are sensitive to climate variability, and to examine the decision processes that are associated with these issues (see figure-above). Reservoir managers in the Interior West are currently faced with providing water for new uses (e.g., in-stream flows, recreation) while still meeting the needs of traditional rights holders and uses (irrigation, hydropower). Several legal mandates could require changes in water distribution unless another way is found to meet an increasing number of multiple uses. Better use of climate information represents one tool that may enable reservoir managers to meet these new uses while minimizing conflicts.

Three main early insights emerged from this work.

• First, it is important to understand the focus of attention of the water managers (i.e., the issues currently of concern to them), and to provide both forecasts and information (e.g. historical analyses, research results) that are relevant to these issues or management problems. These current management issues can be a window of opportunity in which managers may be willing to learn about and try new tools, such as climate outlooks.
  
• Second, the needs of water managers and water users for climate information can be organized in terms of a calendar of the annual cycle of their decisions, in this case, reservoir operations (Ray, et al. 2000). This calendar identifies the times when key decisions must be made. In the experimental implementation of climate services, such a calendar can help determine what information and outlooks are needed by different kinds of users, and when it is needed.
  
• Third, it is best to work as partners with users, not just viewing them as an endpoint in a linear process.

Joint integrated hydrological monitoring and diagnosis

We are collaborating with water managers in the Upper Colorado River system to develop and sustain near real-time monitoring of snowpack, stream flow, weather, and their statistics in the Interior West. Check out the following links to see preliminary examples of such efforts for the Yampa.

• Seven and ten-day temperature forecasts for the Yampa River Basin region.
  
• Day-by-day monitoring and diagnostics of the surface hydroclimatic variations in the Yampa River Basin including Yampa River streamflow and snow water equivalent at Rabbit Ears Pass.

We are currently expanding and refining such efforts based on the emerging synthesis (from user interactions) on decision processes and calendars for consumptive and non-consumptive water usage in our study region.

Experimental hydrologic prediction system

We are collaborating with the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center to provide experimental short-term streamflow forecasts for basins in the Upper Colorado River in Spring 2003. Stay tuned for experimental forecasts.