Lake Powell at Existential Risk As River Basins Head for ‘Tipping Point’ [Video]

A study has revealed that Colorado’s West Slope water basins may be approaching a critical tipping point, where maintaining traditional water delivery levels to Lake Powell and other vital areas could become unsustainable, even under modest climate change scenarios.

The research, published in Earth’s Future on November 9, represents the most extensive exploratory modeling analysis ever conducted on drought vulnerability in the Colorado West Slope basins—six watersheds within the Colorado River Basin on the western side of the continental divide.

These watersheds, which feed into Lake Powell and support a $5 billion annual agricultural economy, are crucial water sources for seven western U.S. states, as well as Mexico.

“Our work shows that even relatively middle-of-the-road climate change and streamflow declines in these basins flows can threaten to put the system at risk of breaching a tipping point,” Patrick Reed, the study’s senior author and Joseph C. Ford Professor at Cornell Engineering’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said …