Salt River Project

This project examines community perceptions and decisions about climate science, economics, and policies associated with resilience strategies that address increasing water scarcity in the Southwest. Strategies to be evaluated include: investments in built infrastructure (e.g., reservoirs and pipelines); incentive-based risk-sharing agreements; and watershed ecosystem services. The project emphasizes how ecosystem services can buffer water impacts of climate change, as well as the potential for climate mitigation as a strategy to enhance water supply security. Project outputs will include a replicable method for co-producing resilient water-related climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, including scientific and economic evaluation. Potential outcomes include improved water supply reliability and cooperation on adapting to shortages for a regional economy that exceeds $3 trillion annually.

Impact Case Study - Water Resource Planning: Community-Based Responses to Climate-Related Water Challenges

Project Partners: School of Natural Resources and the Environment, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Arizona Department of Water Resources, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Central Arizona Project, Salt River Project, University of Nevada, Reno,  University of Colorado, Sonoran Institute, The Nature Conservancy
 

Additional Funders: U.S. Dept. of the Interior – Southwest Climate Science Center, U.S. Department of Interior—Landscape Conservation Cooperatives

Drought risks and vulnerability varies within regional stakeholder networks. This project aimed to better characterize the complexity of drought vulnerability in the Lower San Pedro watershed. CLIMAS investigators engaged with a mix of stakeholders with shared interest in better understanding how drought and climate vulnerability might shape future climate risks. The project takes a local-to-regional perspective on drought and climate vulnerability and asks how that could inform a drought early warning system.

The purpose of this project is to investigate Colorado River basin droughts, and the climatic factors that influence those droughts. The project uses paleoclimatic data to extend instrumental climate and flow records, along with climate change projections to assess the range of possible conditions that may be expected to occur and to determine how warming temperatures may influence river flow and water supply in the future.

Collaborator(s) / Affiliation(s): G. Pederson (U.S. Geological Survey – Bozeman), A. Csank (Desert Research Institute), S. Gray (Alaska Climate Science Center; U.S. Geological Survey), S. McAfee (Univ. of Nevada – Dept. of Geography), G. McCabe (U.S. Geological Survey – Denver)
 

Project Partners: Alaska Climate Science Center, Denver Water, Desert Research Institute, NOAA – Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, Salt River Project, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Geological Survey, University of Nevada - Department of Geography
 

Additional Funders: U.S. Dept. of the Interior – Southwest Climate Science Center

Persistent drought and climate change affect water and energy costs, and hence choices made by farms, cities and industrial water and energy users, as well as energy and water providers’ operations. This project examines potential climate change and variability adaptation strategies related to water and energy in the Colorado River and Rio Grande Basins, including northwestern Mexico. Researchers are investigating how climate influences the market price of water and developing a menu of water and energy supply reliability tools with guidelines for using these tools.