NEWSLETTER OF THE WESTERN WATER ASSESSMENT COOPERATIVE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER INSIDE THIS ISSUE WWA Announcements • Kristen Averyt named WWA Director UPCOMING EVENTS • WWA Co-Hosts San Juan Beetle-Water Workshop NEW PAPERS ON WWA RESEARCH • Bark beetle infestations not increasing stream nitrate concentrations • Water use by power plants, now and in the future • Lower Colorado River flow variability affects basinwide system risk CLIMATE AND WATER UPDATE • Low snowpacks and runoff forecasts across the Intermountain West About WWA WWA ANNOUNCEMENTS Kristen Averyt named WWA Director SPRING 2013 1 2 2 3 4 Subscribers to the WWA newsletter will be notified by email when a new edition is available, and may access it either in pdf or html format. The newsletter is also available online at: http://wwa.colorado.edu/ about/newsletter Associate Directors responsible for helping the program initiate and craft new research projects. Lisa Dilling (Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at CU-Boulder) will serve as Associate Director for Social Sciences, while Noah Molotch (Assistant Professor of Geography at CU-Boulder) will serve as Associate Director for Physical Sciences. Eric Gordon, Jeff Lukas, and Tim Bardsley will remain in their current positions as the program’s core staff. K risten Averyt, who has served as WWA’s interim Director since January, has been named the program’s Director, replacing Brad Udall. Kristen was the Deputy Director of WWA from July 2008 to April 2012. She will also maintain her current position as Associate Director for Science at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), the research institute that houses WWA at the University of Colorado Boulder. Congratulations to Kristen! In addition, two current members of the WWA research team will now serve as Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences building on University of Colorado Boulder Campus. Photo credit: CIRES/University of Colorado.
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NE WSLET TER OF THE WESTERN WATER ASSESSMENTCOOPER ATIVE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCESUNIVERSIT Y OF COLOR ADO BOULDER
INSIDE THIS ISSUEWWA Announcements
• Kristen Averyt named WWA Director
UPCOMING EVENTS
• WWA Co-Hosts San Juan Beetle-Water Workshop
NEW PAPERS ON WWA RESEARCH
• Bark beetle infestations not increasing stream nitrate concentrations
• Water use by power plants, now and in the future
• Lower Colorado River flow variability affects basinwide system risk
CLIMATE AND WATER UPDATE
• Low snowpacks and runoff forecasts across the Intermountain West
About WWA
WWA ANNOUNCEMENTSKristen Averyt named WWA Director
SPRING 2013
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2
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4
Subscribers to the WWA newsletter will be notified
by email when a new edition is available, and may access
it either in pdf or html format. The newsletter is also available online at:
http://wwa.colorado.edu/about/newsletter
Associate Directors responsible for helping the program initiate and craft new research projects. Lisa Dilling (Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at CU-Boulder) will serve as Associate Director for Social Sciences, while Noah Molotch (Assistant Professor of Geography
at CU-Boulder) will serve as Associate Director for Physical Sciences.
Eric Gordon, Jeff Lukas, and Tim Bardsley will remain in their current positions as the program’s core staff.
Kristen Averyt, who has served as WWA’s interim
Director since January, has been named the program’s Director, replacing Brad Udall. Kristen was the Deputy Director of WWA from July 2008 to April 2012. She will also maintain her current position as Associate Director for Science at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), the research institute that houses WWA at the University of Colorado Boulder. Congratulations to Kristen!
In addition, two current members of the WWA research team will now serve as
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences building on University of Colorado Boulder Campus. Photo credit: CIRES/University of Colorado.
(MSI), the San Juan Headwaters Forest Health Partnership, and the U.S. Forest Service are putting on a workshop exploring the water-related impacts of bark beetle infestations in the San Juans and the Rocky Mountain West. The goals of the workshop are to (1) Share key findings and uncertainties from beetle-water research in Colorado and elsewhere in the West, and describe ongoing studies; (2) Seek input from resource managers on the Western Slope about their water/watershed concerns and information needs related to ongoing beetle infestations, particularly the spruce beetle infestation; and (3) Help connect decision-makers with researchers and information resources. For more information, see the workshop webpage.
UPCOMING EVENTSWWA Co-Hosts San Juan Beetle-Water Workshop
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Beetle-killed spruce near Wolf Creek Pass, east of Pagosa Springs, January 2013. Photo credit: Eric Gordon
NEW PAPERS ON WWA RESEARCHBark beetle infestations not increasing stream nitrate concentrations
An author team that included
W WA-sponsored researchers James McCutchan and Thomas Detmer concluded that, contrary to e x p e c t a t i o n s , there has been no significant increase in stream nitrate c o n c e n t r a t i o n s following widespread pine beetle tree mortality in Colorado. The team’s paper, published in January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), synthesized findings from several university and federal agency research studies, including the
WWA project led by McCutchan. Read the CU-Boulder press release, the Green blog at the New York Times and the full article at PNAS. Also see the WWA Beetles, Water, and Climate webpages.
Water use by power plants, now and in the future
WWA’s Kristen Averyt and James Meldrum, along with collaborators at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Synapse Energy E c o n o m i c s , recently completed a series of analyses on the use of
Photo credit: istockphoto.com
Laramie River Power Station, taken at Grayrocks Reservoir near Wheatland, WY.
freshwater resources by electric power plants. Their findings were recently published as part of a “Focus on Electricity, Water, and Climate Connections” in the journal Environmental Research Letters. One paper analyzed 2008 data and found that approximately 41% of freshwater withdrawals and 3% of freshwater consumption across the country is attributable to power generation, usually for cooling purposes (Averyt et al. 2013). A second paper (Meldrum et al. 2013) provided a new method for comparing life-cycle water usage by various types of generation technologies, while a third (Macknick et al. 2013) explored how freshwater withdrawals by electric power plants could change under a number of future electricity generation scenarios. The entire “Focus” is available here.
Lower Colorado River flow variability affects basinwide system risk
WWA’s Jeff Lukas and Balaji Rajagopalan, with CU graduate student Lisa Wade and collaborators at the University of Arizona and the Colorado River District, developed new tree-ring reconstructions of streamflow for the Lower Colorado
River Basin, and i n c o r p o r a t e d them into system response modeling for the entire Colorado River Basin. The team found that the highly variable Lower Basin flows do matter to the overall system; in particular,
the periodic large discharges from the Gila River into the mainstem can lead to a measurable reduction of basinwide risk. The team’s findings were summarized in the November/December issue of Colorado Water, published by the CSU Colorado Water Institute (CWI), and were fully described in their completion report which was recently posted on the CWI website.
CLIMATE AND WATER UPDATELow snowpacks and runoff forecasts across the Intermountain West
According to the March 7 briefing
based on the WWA’s Intermountain West Climate Dashboard, snowpacks are now b e l o w - a v e r a g e in nearly every basin across the region after a dry February caused the snowpacks in Utah and western Wyoming to lose ground compared to average conditions. The March 1 spring-summer streamflow forecasts for the region call for well-b e l o w - a v e r a g e (<70%) runoff in nearly all basins, reflecting both the low snowpacks and the unusually low soil moisture last fall. The NOAA CPC seasonal climate outlooks show a dry “tilt” for spring and early summer precipitation for most of our region, though the one-month outlook for March has no tilt. In contrast, the Experimental Precipitation Guidance for April–June shows a wet tilt over
Prepared by USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, National Water Climate Center, http://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov.
Photo credit: Jeff Lukas
Colorado and eastern Utah. For more information, including the most up-to-date climate and water graphics for our region, visit WWA’s Intermountain West Climate Dashboard webpage.
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COMMENTS, QUESTIONS, OR IDEAS?Do you have feedback on WWA’s research, website, or publications? Are you looking for information about water and climate in the Intermountain West? Do you see a research need that, if filled, would help you carry out your work better? We would like to hear from you! Email us at [email protected].
The Western Water Assessment (WWA) is a university-based applied research program that addresses societal vulnerabilities related to climate, particularly in the area of water resources. While we are based in Boulder, Colorado, we work across the Intermountain West—Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
Our mission is to identify and characterize regional vulnerabilities to and impacts of climate variability and change, and to develop information, products, and processes to assist decision makers throughout the Intermountain West.
The WWA team is comprised of researchers in multiple disciplines—climatology, hydrology, ecology, social sciences, and law—at the University of Colorado-Boulder and several other institutions in the region. We work directly with stakeholders such as water managers to articulate research questions, and ensure that the research products will be usable in their planning and decision-making processes. Ultimately, our goal is to improve societal preparedness for climate variability and climate change.
We are part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Our primary source of funding is NOAA’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) Program, and we are one of 11 RISA-supported regional programs operating across the U.S.
Much of our work focuses on the multiple stressors that interact with climate to pose challenges to water resource management. For example, our ongoing Snowmelt Perturbations project seeks to disentangle the effects of annual climate variability, long-term climate change, dust-on-snow, and beetle kill, on the delivery of runoff from forested watersheds.
In addition to conducting research projects, we produce synthesis and assessment products to make existing knowledge more accessible to stakeholders, such as the 2008 WWA report Climate Change in Colorado for the Colorado Water Conservation Board. WWA also summarizes and delivers near-real-time climate information via our Intermountain West Climate Dashboard and other products. In providing useful products for our stakeholders in our region, we also serve to prototype, for NOAA, the delivery of regional climate services.
