\u201cBoth scenarios demonstrate the need to adopt significant additional measures to permanently decrease consumptive uses across the entire Basin,\u201d the authors wrote.<\/p>\n
The Colorado River<\/a> and its tributaries serve 40 million people across seven Western states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. In the U.S., the Colorado River Basin is split into an upper basin containing Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, and a lower basin comprising Arizona, California and Nevada. Water use in the basins, between 11 and 13 million acre feet recently, has consistently outstripped what nature provides, leading to some reductions in usage but an imminent need for much steeper cuts.<\/p>\n But the new report<\/a> finds the supply-and-demand imbalance is likely to persist under a range of weather and usage scenarios.<\/p>\n If water year 2027, measured from the beginning of October 2026 to the end of the following September, is similar to water year 2025, one of the five driest since 2000, and human consumption is on par with the lowest levels this century, the U.S. would overconsume the natural flow of the river by 2.59 million acre feet (one acre foot of water can serve between 1 and 3 households depending on the climate).\u00a0<\/p>\n Such a drain would \u201crisk a crash of the Basin\u2019s water storage system,\u201d the authors found.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lakes Mead and Powell, the two largest reservoirs in the U.S., would hover just above the minimum elevations required for their dams to produce electricity and maintain their structural integrity. Hoover and Glen Canyon dams would be close to operating as \u201crun-of-the-river\u201d facilities that store no surplus.<\/p>\n Another dry winter would hit farmers across the region particularly hard, said Anne Castle, a senior fellow at the Getches-Wilkinson Center at the University of Colorado Law School, a former assistant secretary for Water and Science at the Interior Department and one of the report\u2019s authors. \u201cIt could put a lot of market pressure on agricultural water users\u201d to sell their water to cities, she continued, which would \u201chave a significant effect on agricultural production and rural communities.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just so hard to make those kinds of deep cuts,\u201d Castle said. \u201cWhen you translate that into who exactly is going to get less water, it gets even harder.\u201d<\/p>\n A wetter water year would bring only temporary relief. If next winter delivers large volumes of snow, akin to water year 2023, the third wettest year of the century<\/a>, and human consumption matches what was drawn from the river that year, the Colorado River could provide a surplus of 4.83 million acre feet. This would partially recharge lakes Powell and Mead, but in less than two years overconsumption would return them to today\u2019s lows, the authors wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cBy and large, their analysis is right\u2014we need to reduce consumption,\u201d said Mark Squillace, a natural resources law professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, who was not involved with the report. \u201cWe need to be thinking about measuring consumptive use for our individual water users, and then making sure that we are finding strategies and providing incentives for users, particularly farmers, to reduce their consumptive use.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As reservoir levels across the Colorado River Basin continue to drop, negotiations among the basin states over a new long-term operating plan for the Colorado River have pivoted toward a short-term deal<\/a>. There is a real possibility that states will sue one another over how much water each will be required to leave in the river for the others to use, an outcome widely seen as counterproductive. The Bureau of Reclamation, which manages federal infrastructure throughout the basin, including Hoover and Glen Canyon dams, is expected to publish its record of decision this summer detailing how it will operate the river moving forward.<\/p>\n This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n Donate Now<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cThere is concern that because the seven states haven\u2019t been able to come to a consensus agreement and because Reclamation\u2019s and Interior\u2019s authorities are limited, the operation we\u2019ll see described is potentially not going to be sufficient to stabilize the system,\u201d Castle said.<\/p>\n The new report\u2019s hydrological forecasts show less water in the river than Reclamation\u2019s May<\/a> iteration<\/a> of its 24-month projections, which are based on river flow measurements from 1991 to 2020. Given the recent drought, Castle called the agency\u2019s minimum probable inflow forecast for the water year 2027 \u201cway high.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe 1990s were relatively wet,\u201d said Eric Kuhn, the retired general manager of the Colorado River Water Conservation District, the oldest and largest of the state\u2019s four conservation districts, and another of the report\u2019s authors. \u201cSince 2020, we\u2019ve had about a 10 million acre-foot river.\u201d<\/p>\n Reclamation did not respond to a request for comment about how it factors aridity into its 24-month projections. The agency also makes other 2-year and 5-year projections for the river using its Mid-Term Operations Model, which Kuhn said encompasses the continued drought of the last half-decade.<\/p>\n \u201cReclamation is on their toes when it comes to improving these forecasts,\u201d Kuhn said.<\/p>\n No matter what the next water year brings, Colorado River reservoirs will likely continue ratcheting downward as long as supply and demand remain imbalanced. \u201cEvery time we go through a wet period, we don\u2019t recover enough and we haven\u2019t reduced basic uses enough,\u201d Kuhn said. \u201cThe next dry cycle is worse.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not a temporary situation,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe long-term solution is a permanent reduction in the consumptive use footprint throughout the basin.\u201d<\/p>\n Squillace agreed, and added that as climate change promises to upend how water is managed in the arid West, that basin cannot afford to get hung up on a short-term agreement. \u201cThat\u2019s just kicking the can down the road,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The hydrology is \u201cgonna get worse,\u201d he continued. \u201cSo let\u2019s plan for that.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can\u2019t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We\u2019ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.<\/p>\n Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don\u2019t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places? <\/p>\n Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.<\/p>\n Thank you,<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Jake-Bolster-300x300.jpeg\"\/)
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