{"id":190,"date":"2026-05-13T11:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T11:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradorelocationreport.com\/?p=190"},"modified":"2026-05-13T11:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T11:03:18","slug":"climate-change-starts-a-new-clock-on-colorados-river-runoff-study-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradorelocationreport.com\/?p=190","title":{"rendered":"Climate change starts a new clock on Colorado\u2019s river runoff, study says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The first question posed about Colorado\u2019s most precious resource, water, is always, \u201cHow much?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more The rivers, lakes and hot springs of Colorado we love most<\/a><\/p>\n

The second water question is always, \u201cWhere?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A study from the Colorado School of Mines poses a new third question that may prove just as important for Colorado\u2019s drought-plagued future:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study from a hydrologist and an economist published April 30 in Nature Water<\/em> combines theoretical calculations with real data from the Rio Grande headwaters in southern Colorado. Warmer temperatures from climate change are resulting in more streamflow coming from rain rather than snow, spreading out the peak runoff to a longer period, according to School of Mines economist Steven Smith and hydrologist and climate change researcher Adrienne Marshall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The effect in Colorado\u2019s major river basins could put senior and junior water rights holders even more at odds during seasonal extremes. Under Colorado water law, those who claimed and legalized water rights in earlier years get priority over junior (later) rights holders when there\u2019s a shortage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spring and summer in the West after a poor snowfall season \u201ctend to have more evenly distributed flows. This combination is likely to intensify drought impacts on junior water users, who receive water only after senior rights are fulfilled,\u201d according to a CSoM writeup of the study. Water rights in Colorado are often allocated on the basis of daily flows, the researchers note, which may not account for variations over a full season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But of course it\u2019s not as simple as that, since water never is, Marshall and Smith add. Senior rights holders are not always relatively well-off farmers or cities. The most senior holders in the Rio Grande basin are sometimes small farming operations on communal ancient land-grant ditches, using relatively small amounts of water.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThose senior rights are often tied to smaller allocations. As a result, changes in water availability do not map neatly onto broader measures of social or economic equity,\u201d the Mines study says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Democrats abandon rollback of business tax breaks to fund family tax credit after Colorado governor\u2019s veto threat<\/a><\/p>\n

Over 70 years of Rio Grande basin data, the \u201cspread\u201d of water flows in some years can last 10 days longer than average and greatly impact the timing of water rights, Smith said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were seeing a change where the junior irrigators were getting reduced by 20% of their water, whereas the seniors were getting 12% more water than normal,\u201d Smith said, even as the total amount of stream water over the course of the year stayed the same. \u201cThat was a pretty large swing for just this change.\u201d<\/p>\n

The finding for less-snowy parts of the West hinted at an opposite effect: The pair of researchers say they have much more to study to map out the full implications of the timing trend. In the less-snowy (but possibly rainier) geography, \u201cWarmer years are associated with more concentrated flows, potentially offering a relative advantage to junior water users,\u201d the study concludes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether or not that\u2019s more equitable or less equitable is not clear,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe want to dig more into that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

They also want to find similar data from other major river basins, such as the much-fought-over Colorado River Basin. The upper portions of the Colorado in the state are heavily impacted by diversions to the Front Range and reservoirs. The School of Mines researchers would like to explore whether those heavily controlled sections of rivers will do a better job distributing water equitably over time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs water scarcity intensifies across many parts of the country, we hope our findings provide new insight for policymakers, water managers and communities working to adapt to a more variable and uncertain future,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Read more Colorado lawmakers reject environmentalist-backed effort to regulate data centers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Colorado School of Mines study adds “when” to the perennial water questions of “how much” and “where” water is flowing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":189,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water"],"yoast_head":"\nClimate change starts a new clock on Colorado\u2019s river runoff, study says - Colorado Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/coloradorelocationreport.com\/?p=190\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Climate change starts a new clock on Colorado\u2019s river runoff, study says - 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