Lower Colorado Basin Research Articles

Early season irrigation detection and evapotranspiration modeling of winter vegetables based on Planet satellite using water and energy balance algorithm in lower Colorado basin

Early season irrigation detection and evapotranspiration modeling of winter vegetables based on Planet satellite using water and energy balance algorithm in lower Colorado basin

The manufacture process of war clubs: Replicating indigenous technological systems of conflict from the Lower Colorado Basin

This study provides a multi-disciplinary framework operationalizing the study of weaponry through experimental archaeology. In this scenario, I focus on war clubs, a type of Indigenous weapon commonly found across North America. The goal of this study is to understand how these weapons were engineered for violent conflict. My methodology utilizes archival research, museum study, and experimental archaeology analyses to elaborate on features of design, manufacture, use, and tactics of war club technologies. To operationalize this framework, I focus on a case study of conflict technology in the Lower Colorado River Basin from 1540–1857. Despite war clubs being prolific and an integral part of the technological systems of conflict in this region, this is the initial in-depth material analysis of this weapon type. From this study we can begin to infer how and why weapons systems were chosen, designed, created, and used through the experiential and embodied process of making.

Editorial Volume 8 Issue 1 (January 2022)

Editorial Volume 8 Issue 1 (January 2022)

Credibility of Convection-Permitting Modeling to Improve Seasonal Precipitation Forecasting in the Southwestern United States

Sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) forecasts are useful for critical planning and management decisions in multiple sectors. Presently, in the United States, the primary source for real time seasonal climate forecast comes from the Climate Prediction Center within the National Center for climate Prediction (NCEP) which uses its model forecast component Climate Forecast System Version 2 (CFSv2) of North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME). In comparison to the cool season, the level of skill in warm season seasonal forecasts of precipitation produced by the NMME is much lower due to the poor climatological representation of warm season convective precipitation. This study shows that dynamical downscaling using a regional climate model at a convective permitting scale driven by boundary conditions from global reanalysis of CFS (CFSR) enhances regional forecast skill by better resolving the regional forcings and processes that generate the regional response from the large-scale circulation anomaly. Improvement in S2S forecast skill needs combination of skillful forecast of the large-scale circulation anomaly as well as its regional response in temperature and precipitation, the latter specially where it is modulated primarily by regional forcings like topography or land cover. To fully realize the potential in improving warm season seasonal forecasts using a dynamical modeling approach, we performed dynamically downscaled simulations with Weather Research and Forecasting model over the Upper and Lower Colorado basin at 12 km and 3 km grid spacing for 2000-2011. The additional convective-permitting nested domain of 3km resolution significantly reduces the bias in mean (~2mm/day) and extreme (~4 mm/day) summer precipitation when compared to coarser domain of 12 km resolution. The convective permitting modeling product also better represents eastward propagation of the moist convective summer systems, which are major source of summer rainfall in the southwest United Sates. Our findings provide important insights for S2S prediction using convective permitting model.

Estimating Crop Consumption of Irrigation Water for the Conterminous U.S.

Abstract. Water consumption for crop irrigation is the largest single use of water in the U.S. but is poorly quantified because of limitations in data and the inherent challenges in measuring water consumption. In this study, water consumption for irrigated agriculture was estimated across the U.S. to improve understanding of water budgets in different regions. Published data on cropping patterns and water application were used in conjunction with a national-scale analysis to estimate water application and crop water consumption using the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) watershed model. Crop water consumption estimates were based on evapotranspiration, with supporting information on the diversity of crops, irrigated area, water quantity and source, and local weather conditions. Quantification of water consumption supports broader analyses of the food-energy-water nexus and allows evaluation of the efficiency of irrigation water use at different spatial scales. Focusing on 2005 data, it is estimated that 60% of water reported as withdrawn from various sources is applied to fields, indicating a potentially large and poorly understood conveyance loss that occurs in a small number of states. Of the field-applied irrigation water, roughly 65% is directly used by crops or is lost in the field, with large regional variations. This may be compared to consumption estimates in prior studies that ranged from 16% to 90%. Areas that dominate the national aggregate estimate of crop water consumption include California’s Central and Imperial Valleys, areas overlying the Ogallala Aquifer in the central U.S., the Lower Colorado Basin, and the eastern part of the Pacific Northwest Basin. Keywords: Crop water use, Irrigated agriculture, SWAT, Watershed model, Water withdrawal.

Shepherding Compact Security Water in the Upper Colorado River Basin

This article discusses the storage of conserved/foregone use water in Lake Powell to provide a means of ensuring sufficient water reaches the Lower Colorado Basin in compliance with the Colorado River Compact to avoid curtailment of water uses in the Upper Basin. It discusses some of the associated issues, including how to shepherd this water from its place of use in Colorado to Lake Powell.

GRACE satellite observations reveal the severity of recent water over-consumption in the United States

Changes in the climate and population growth will critically impact the future supply and demand of water, leading to large uncertainties for sustainable resource management. In the absence of on-the-ground measurements to provide spatially continuous, high-resolution information on water supplies, satellite observations can provide essential insight. Here, we develop a technique using observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite to evaluate the sustainability of surface water and groundwater use over the continental United States. We determine the annual total water availability for 2003–2015 using the annual variability in GRACE-derived total water storage for 18 major watersheds. The long-term sustainable water quantity available to humans is calculated by subtracting an annual estimate of the water needed to maintain local ecosystems, and the resulting water volumes are compared to reported consumptive water use to determine a sustainability fraction. We find over-consumption is highest in the southwest US, where increasing stress trends were observed in all five basins and annual consumptive use exceeded 100% availability twice in the Lower Colorado basin during 2003–2015. By providing a coarse-scale evaluation of sustainable water use from satellite and ground observations, the established framework serves as a blueprint for future large-scale water resource monitoring.

Economic performance of irrigation capacity development to adapt to climate in the American Southwest

Growing demands for food security to feed increasing populations worldwide have intensified the search for improved performance of irrigation, the world’s largest water user. These challenges are raised in the face of climate variability and from growing environmental demands. Adaptation measures in irrigated agriculture include fallowing land, shifting cropping patterns, increased groundwater pumping, reservoir storage capacity expansion, and increased production of risk-averse crops. Water users in the Gila Basin headwaters of the U.S. Lower Colorado Basin have faced a long history of high water supply fluctuations producing low-valued defensive cropping patterns. To date, little research grade analysis has investigated economically viable measures for irrigation development to adjust to variable climate. This gap has made it hard to inform water resource policy decisions on workable measures to adapt to climate in the world’s dry rural areas. This paper’s contribution is to illustrate, formulate, develop, and apply a new methodology to examine the economic performance from irrigation capacity improvements in the Gila Basin of the American Southwest. An integrated empirical optimization model using mathematical programming is developed to forecast cropping patterns and farm income under two scenarios (1) status quo without added storage capacity and (2) with added storage capacity in which existing barriers to development of higher valued crops are dissolved. We find that storage capacity development can lead to a higher valued portfolio of irrigation production systems as well as more sustained and higher valued farm livelihoods. Results show that compared to scenario (1), scenario (2) increases regional farm income by 30%, in which some sub regions secure income gains exceeding 900% compared to base levels. Additional storage is most economically productive when institutional and technical constraints facing irrigated agriculture are dissolved. Along with additional storage, removal of constraints on weak transportation capacity, limited production scale, poor information access, weak risk-bearing capacity, limited management skills, scarce labor supply, low food processing capacity, and absolute scale constraints, all can raise the economic value of additional irrigation capacity development. Our results light a path forward to policy makers, water administrators, and farm managers, who bear the burden of protecting farm income, food and water security, and rural economic development in the world’s dry regions faced by the need to adapt to climate variability.

Endogenous change: on cooperation and water availability in two ancient societies

Abstract. We propose and test the theory of endogenous change in societal institutions based on historical reconstructions of two ancient civilizations, the Indus and Hohokam, in two water-scarce basins, the Indus Basin in the Indian subcontinent and the lower Colorado Basin in the southwestern United States. In our reconstructions, institutions are approximated by the scale of "cooperation", be it in the form of the extent of trade, sophisticated irrigation networks, a central state or a loosely held state with a common cultural identity. We study changes in institutions brought about by changes in factors like rainfall, population density, and land-use-induced water resource availability, in a proximate manner. These factors either change naturally or are changed by humans; in either case we contend that the changes affect the stability of cooperative structures over time. We relate the quantitative dimensions of water access by ancient populations to the co-evolution of water access and the socioeconomic and sociopolitical organizations. In doing so, we do not claim that water manipulation was the single most significant factor in stimulating social development and complexity – this would be highly reductionist. Nonetheless, we provide a discussion with the aim to enhance our understanding of the complexity of coupled human–hydrological systems. We find that scarcity triggered more complex cooperative arrangements in both Indus and Hohokam societies.

An environmental risk assessment for oseltamivir (Tamiflu ®) for sewage works and surface waters under seasonal-influenza- and pandemic-use conditions

In the event of an influenza pandemic, anti-viral medications such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu ®) are expected to be used in high amounts over a duration of several weeks. Oseltamivir has been predicted to reach high concentrations in surface waters and sewage works. New oseltamivir environmental fate and toxicity studies permit an environmental risk assessment (ERA) under seasonal- and pandemic-use scenarios. The environmental fate data for sewage works (no removal), surface waters (no significant degradation), and water/sediment systems (>50% primary degradation in 100 days) were used for the derivation of new predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) for western Europe and the River Lee catchment in the UK. Existing worst-case PECs for western Europe, the River Lee catchment in the UK and the Lower Colorado basin in the USA under pandemic conditions (⩽98.1 μg/L for surface waters, ⩽348 μg/L for sewage works) were also considered for the ERA. PECs were compared with predicted no-effect concentrations (PNECs) based on new chronic ecotoxicity data (no observed effect concentration for algae, daphnia, and fish ⩾1 mg/L). Based on all PEC/PNEC risk ratios, no significant risk is evident to surface waters or sewage works during both regular seasonal-use and high pandemic-use of oseltamivir.

Quantifying Rarity, Losses, and Risks for Native Fishes of the Lower Colorado River Basin: Implications for Conservation Listing

Abstract: We examined spatial distributions of fishes native to the lower basin of the Colorado River (25 species) at three scales to determine percent decline from historical distributions based on a regional biodiversity database. We cumulated records from 1843 to 1980 to develop a “historical distribution” for each species and used those occurrences recorded from 1981 to 1998 as “modern” records. We then contrasted historical and modern distributions to (1) quantify losses in spatial distribution; (2) determine how strongly these losses and fragmentation patterns corresponded to the perceived risk of extinction of each species, as represented by its status under the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species; and (3) update extinction risk rankings for 15 fishes endemic to the lower Colorado Basin according to the IUCN criteria. Based on presence and absence data, fish fauna of the lower Colorado Basin have suffered massive distributional losses. On average, ranges of extant species have diminished more than 45% relative to their historical distribution, and 35% of species have lost 50% or more of their occurrences. We provide nine new IUCN rankings and six updates to reflect more accurately the heightened imperilment of these species. Based on our new rankings, 7 of the 15 lower Colorado Basin endemics are critically endangered, 1 is endangered, 2 are vulnerable, and 1 is already extinct. We categorize the remaining 2 endemics as lower risk. This work demonstrates the utility of matching quantitative spatial metrics such as the scale‐area slope statistic to extinction risk criteria for species whose persistence is strongly influenced by spatial distribution.

Nitrogen Controls on Climate Model Evapotranspiration

Most evapotranspiration over land occurs through vegetation. The fraction of net radiation balanced by evapotranspiration depends on stomatal controls. Stomates transpire water for the leaf to assimilate carbon, depending on the canopy carbon demand, and on root uptake, if it is limiting. Canopy carbon demand in turn depends on the balancing between visible photon-driven and enzyme-driven steps in the leaf carbon physiology. The enzymedriven component is here represented by a Rubisco-related nitrogen reservoir that interacts with plant‐soil nitrogen cycling and other components of a climate model. Previous canopy carbon models included in GCMs have assumed either fixed leaf nitrogen, that is, prescribed photosynthetic capacities, or an optimization between leaf nitrogen and light levels so that in either case stomatal conductance varied only with light levels and temperature. A nitrogen model is coupled to a previously derived but here modified carbon model and includes, besides the enzyme reservoir, additional plant stores for leaf structure and roots. It also includes organic and mineral reservoirs in the soil; the latter are generated, exchanged, and lost by biological fixation, deposition and fertilization, mineralization, nitrification, root uptake, denitrification, and leaching. The root nutrient uptake model is a novel and simple, but rigorous, treatment of soil transport and root physiological uptake. The other soil components are largely derived from previously published parameterizations and global budget constraints. The feasibility of applying the derived biogeochemical cycling model to climate model calculations of evapotranspiration is demonstrated through its incorporation in the Biosphere‐Atmosphere Transfer Scheme land model and a 17-yr Atmospheric Model Inter comparison Project II integration with the NCAR CCM3 GCM. The derived global budgets show land net primary production (NPP), fine root carbon, and various aspects of the nitrogen cycling are reasonably consistent with past studies. Time series for monthly statistics averaged over model grid points for the Amazon evergreen forest and lower Colorado basin demonstrate the coupled interannual variability of modeled precipitation, evapotranspiration, NPP, and canopy Rubisco enzymes.

Dam nation: A geographic census of American dams and their large‐scale hydrologic impacts

Newly available data indicate that dams fragment the fluvial system of the continental United States and that their impact on river discharge is several times greater than impacts deemed likely as a result of global climate change. The 75,000 dams in the continental United States are capable of storing a volume of water almost equaling one year's mean runoff, but there is considerable geographic variation in potential surface water impacts. In some western mountain and plains regions, dams can store more than 3 year's runoff, while in the Northeast and Northwest, storage is as little as 25% of the annual runoff. Dams partition watersheds; the drainage area per dam varies from 44 km2 (17 miles2) per dam in New England to 811 km2 (313 miles2) per dam in the Lower Colorado basin. Storage volumes, indicators of general hydrologic effects of dams, range from 26,200 m3 km−2 (55 acre‐feet mile−2) in the Great Basin to 345,000 m3 km−2 (725 acre‐feet mile−2) in the South Atlantic region. The greatest river flow impacts occur in the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and the arid Southwest, where storage is up to 3.8 times the mean annual runoff. The nation's dams store 5000 m3 (4 acre‐feet) of water per person. Water resource regions have experienced individualized histories of cumulative increases in reservoir storage (and thus of downstream hydrologic and ecologic impacts), but the most rapid increases in storage occurred between the late 1950s and the late 1970s. Since 1980, increases in storage have been relatively minor.

Distribution of Fishes in the Dolores and Yampa River Systems of the Upper Colorado Basin

Fish sampling was conducted in the Dolores River, Colorado, in 1971 and the Yampa River system of Colorado, 1968-71 with emphasis placed on iare and endangered species. Eleven species were found in the Dolores River, but no rare and endangered forms were collected. Twenty-two species were collected in the Yampa River system, including four rare and endangered forms: Colorado squawfish (Ptychocheilus lucius), humpback chub (Gila cypha) bonytail chub (Gila elegans) and humpback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus). The Yampa system appeared important to reproduction and preservation of Colorado squawfish. The native fish fauna of the Colorado River basin represents one of the least understood groups of fishes native to a major North American river basin. Reasons for this are the rugged terrain surrounding the Colorado River and the low economic and sport value placed on these species. The Colorado River has in the last 50 years been greatly desecrated, with much of the system either dry or ponded into great reservoirs. These factors have greatly limited the available habitat for native fishes. Several species are now rare and endangered. Colorado squawfish (Ptychocheilus lucius) and humpback chub (Gila cypha) are presently considered rare and endangered by the U. S. Department of the Interior (1968). The humpback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus) and bonytail chub (Gila elegans) are very rare also (Miller 1972). The native fish of the Colorado River system can be separated into two groups: (1) large river forms found in main channels of the Colorado River, Green River and larger tributaries, and (2) small stream forms found primarily in the lower basin (Nevada, Arizona) in small streams and springs. Minckley and Deacon (1968) reviewed the status of native fishes in the lower Colorado basin (below Grand Canyon). They concluded that large forms are virtually extinct in the lower basin. Therefore, the upper Colorado basin remains th2 only refuge for these unique fishes. This paper is concerned with the Yampa and 1 Portion of a doctoral dissertation written at Utah State University.

Physiology of Man in the Desert.

This work was done under a contract, recommended by the Committee on Medical Research, between the United States Office of Scientific Research and Development and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. It represents a large scale investigation in the field of environmental physiology from 1942 to 1945 and was conducted by a group of physiologists known as the Rochester Desert Union. It was done under the leadership of E. F. Adolph and a group of his associates. A greater part of their studies were made at the camp at Blythe, Calif., which is in the heart of the desert of southern California in the lower Colorado Basin. Studies were made on soldiers, who volunteered for the tests. Men made long hikes in the blazing sun in temperatures ranging from 100 to 120, and were weighed every hour to estimate the sweat loss; the amount of water they