Drought, Climate Change, Water Institutions and Society
 Since 2002 the Center has undertaken a series of Western Water Assessment-funded projects focused on drought, climate change, and water institutions. In its "Impact of Earlier Spring Snowmelt on Water Rights and Administration" project the Center examined whether the growing mismatch between seasonal water rights and earlier runoff in the Intermountain West has resulted in conflict between supply and demand. Earlier work analyzed the drought coping mechanisms of several Colorado Front Range water providers. Read more ...
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Interactions of Drought and Climate Adaptation (IDCA) for Urban Water
 This new project, which was recently funded by the NOAA Sectoral Applications Research Program (SARP), will examine how drought policies interact with both short-term drought and long-term climate change. It will ask whether adjustment today or in the past lead to more resilient systems across climate time scales. The project researchers hypothesize that the more effective a policy becomes in terms of increasing water use efficiency, the more reliant the system becomes on accurate information. Read more ...
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A Socioeconomic Impacts and Adaptation Strategies Clearinghouse
 This project entailed the creation of an online, searchable database of research on socioeconomic impacts of climate change in the Intermountain West. It has been populated with over 200 items, including peer- and non-peer-reviewed articles, reports, websites, presentations, etc. addressing the socioeconomic impacts of various climate phenomena. Read more ...
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This project is aimed at developing a comprehensive understanding of the use of information by stakeholders of the NOAA/NWS Colorado Basin River Forecast Center (CBRFC). Through surveys and interviews, the researchers will assess the climate information needs of CBRFC stakeholders and how they do or do not use quantitative streamflow forecasts. This will provide 1) a better understanding of how water managers and others who use CBRFC forecasts deal with variability and 2) a context through which to view and understand the potential utility of the results of the “Snowmelt Perturbations in the Upper Colorado River Basin” project.
