Drought Science for the Colorado River Basin, Shaped by the People Who Need It

A basin under pressure

The Colorado River Basin — about 246,000 square miles across seven states, home to more than 25 Tribal Nations — faces rising demand and competition for resources, growing risk from natural hazards, and mounting effects of climate change. The people who manage and depend on it need data, science and predictions of how drought will affect it.

The pilot project

The USGS aims to lead in integrated research, assessment and prediction. In 2020, starting with the Rocky Mountain Region Science Exchange, it launched a multiyear project to evaluate its drought science across all disciplines in the basin and speed its delivery. The Actionable and Strategic Integrated Science and Technology (ASIST) Pilot Project is meant to show that complex problems can be tackled by involving stakeholders and using 21st-century technology — delivering science more efficiently and quickly, at lower cost and with less uncertainty.

Who the stakeholders are

A stakeholder is anyone with a vested interest in a resource or place. In the basin they include federal, state, Tribal and local land and resource agencies; nonprofit organizations focused on the environment, recreation or the economy; industries that supply materials and services; associations that connect and inform agencies; and research institutes.

Stakeholders can be involved at rising levels, and can move up as their interest and investment grow:

Levels of stakeholder engagement, from being informed to co-producing the science. USGS figure.

What stakeholders need

Since fall 2020, the team has summarized published and known science needs related to drought, identifying stakeholders of every type and what they need — so it can set priorities and design ways to deliver the science.

The share of science needs by stakeholder type. USGS figure, from Frus and others (2021).

The needs point to themes for the USGS's internal science and technology workshops:

• drought prediction, integrated predictive modeling and early warning indicators;
• how climate change affects drought in the basin;
• groundwater-dependent streams and ecosystems;
• wildfire risk and post-fire effects;
• drought at high elevations — land cover, forest health and snowpack;
• how ecosystems respond to drought and climate change;
• drought's effects on people and development.

What's happening

The team is holding collaboration workshops with USGS experts on delivering science for these priorities, with more planned on the technology needed to deliver actionable information fast enough for decisions. It is funding current science in the basin, seeking more funding to match priorities to needs, and reaching out to stakeholders — and wants their input and collaboration.

Timeline of the pilot project, 2020–2026. USGS figure.

More: Colorado River Basin ASIST; USGS regions for the Upper and Lower Colorado Basin.

Sources

Based on Anne C. Tillery, Sally House, Rebecca J. Frus, Sharon L. Qi, Daniel K. Jones and William J. Andrews, "Addressing Stakeholder Science Needs for Integrated Drought Science in the Colorado River Basin," Fact Sheet 2022–3010, U.S. Geological Survey; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The figures are restored from the fact sheet's PDF; its basin map, drawn on a licensed commercial basemap, is not reproduced.