An example of the knowledge gaps that we have identified and will address with our work is in the current understanding of what makes coupled economic, hydrologic, and agricultural systems more or less sensitive to water scarcity. We propose three metrics (described in the poster) that combine readily attainable information from these systems to provide assessments of a community’s resilience, sensitivity and adaptability to water scarcity. In essence we are distilling multiple data sources from various systems to describe a coupled, overall response. By comparing relative values of these metrics during historic periods of water scarcity, we can test how well this integrated approach describes a community’s response to water scarcity in general and in the future.

The metrics that the Social-Ecologic-Atmospheric group proposes will combine information from regional-scale economics and markets, human water uses, and environmental water needs to assess how the coupled human-environmental systems in the Cache la Poudre watershed will respond to future water scarcity. Existing drought metrics tend to consider single systems such as the economy or the aquatic environment. What is novel about this is how we are combining data from these different systems into integrative metrics, which can assess the the relative sensitivity, resilience, and adaptability of these coupled systems to water scarcity.

Thank you, Joel.
Catherine

The strategies and frameworks we are developing could in fact be applied to any geographic region. Colorado and the intermountain west have unique water-environmental-social challenges due to western water law and large water dependent economies in this arid and semi-arid environment. However, these coupled interactions among the physical, biological, and social processes exist with any water management issue. Therefore, it is our hope that this work will contribute to the larger discussion of managing water for beneficial outcomes in all of these systems.

From Dylan Harrison-Atlas:

Great question, Alan. Historically, the allocation of limited water resources has been dominated by economic interests. Increasingly, however, scientists and the general public have come to appreciate the benefits and values conferred by functional ecosystems. The framework adopted by our Social-Ecological-Hydrologic group integrates the relevant social, economic, and environmental domains to provide a more complete assessment of the outcomes produced by management decisions. In the future, we aim to operationalize this holistic approach in the form of a decision support tool for water resource management.

I’m not entirely sure I understand the question, but I assume you’re asking for the breakdown of use types. The ballpark estimate is 75% of water rights go to agriculture, with the remaining mostly going to municipalities. There is some industrial use, but it is pretty minimal in the basin. Obviously the specific amount depends on the year and the total amount of available water.

If you meant physical balance, the Poudre flow amounts to roughly 250,000 acre feet per year.

Thanks for the suggestion. One of our IGERT fellows from the social-ecological-hydrological subgroup is working with land managers on the social-ecological framework. This coming academic year we will be inviting speakers from management and policy makers to present specific challenges regarding the issues addressed by our whole interdisciplinary group. We will then select a specific
problem to address as a team where we will apply our research.

Thanks for the comments. You certainly bring up very important questions regarding the uncertainty of hydrologic conditions in light of global climate change. While these are the very reasons we are compelled to address challenges confronting water resources, we are not necessarily attempting to model changes in hydrology associated with climate change. Our individual research, however addresses various related topics including micro-climates associated with irrigation of agricultural fields, by Isaac Medina. Perhaps we will get another I-WATER fellow who will address uncertainties of hydrologic modeling a bit more directly. We are operating under the primary assumptions that climate change will result in higher average global temperatures, earlier snowmelt, and higher variability in precipitation and snowpack. Perhaps we should reexamine these assumptions. Regardless of the assumptions, we see the need for improved water management to develop flexible strategies for addressing water scarcity. Research like yours, which addresses feedbacks in the hydrologic cycle, will be needed to inform approached such as ours so we will, certainly stay tuned to what you produce!