Impacts from climate change make headline news. Intense precipitation events followed by extended periods of dryness or drought are common. Snowpack supporting stream flows is diminished and melts earlier in the season. Storm surges and rising sea levels inundate coastline communities. The southwestern United States suffers from prolonged drought of unprecedented duration and intensity. Available surface water and groundwater supplies supporting public water supply, agriculture, hydroelectric power, recreation, and other uses are stressed, or at times unavailable.

Dams and reservoirs are the traditional structural solutions for managing river flows. But during the long-term droughts associated with climate change, they have proven inadequate to support stream flows and diversions. Dry conditions in the Colorado River Basin have reduced the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, to about 26% of capacity. As a result, states in the Lower Colorado River Basin are engaged in the painful process of reducing their diversions.

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