Planning for an uncertain future in the Colorado River basin

The Colorado River, a vital life-sustaining artery in the Western United States, is increasingly threatened by climate change, prolonged drought, and growing water demands.

Providing drinking water for homes, supporting wildlife, and irrigation for farms across seven states, the basin is under significant pressure to adapt to an uncertain and challenging future.

In response to these growing concerns, a team of dedicated researchers led by Penn State University has developed a state-of-the-art computational tool aimed at helping the region’s decision-makers navigate these complex uncertainties.

Guide for Colorado River planning

The novel tool, the Framework for Narrative Storylines and Impact Classification (FRNSIC), can help decision-makers explore various plausible futures and identify consequential scenario storylines – thoughtfully crafted descriptions of critical futures.

This can better equip planners to address the impacts and uncertainties of climate change. The team reported their findings in the journal Earth’s Future.

“One of the ways states like Colorado are preparing for the future is by making plans for how things might evolve based on the available science and inputs from various stakeholders,” said lead author Antonia Hadjimichael, assistant professor of geosciences at Penn State.

“This scenario planning process recognizes that planning for the future comes with many uncertainties about climate and water needs. So, planners have to consider different possibilities, such as a high-warming or a low-warming scenario.”

Science and decision-making

In the past, decision-makers typically relied on scenario planning approaches or exploratory modeling to anticipate future challenges in Colorado river planning.

Scenario planning is based on a small number of simplified scenarios and often overlooks the complexity of all the interrelated factors involved, leading to a limited view of possible outcomes.

Exploratory modeling, on the other hand, simulates millions of potential futures, offering a more comprehensive analysis, but it can be overwhelming and impractical for policymakers to interpret due to its sheer complexity.

“We wanted to provide something in the middle,” explained Hadjimichael. “We wanted to create something that bridges the two – that considers the complexities but also boils it down to something that’s a little more actionable and a little less daunting.”

Two-step process for Colorado River planning

The Framework for Narrative Storylines and Impact Classification follows a two-step process. First, it uses exploratory modeling to investigate a vast array of hypothesized future conditions. Then, it classifies and identifies relevant and locally meaningful storylines, tailored to the needs of specific stakeholders.

“Our approach essentially explores plausible future impacts and then says, ‘for this stakeholder, this is the storyline that would matter the most – and then for this other stakeholder, there is a different storyline they should be worried about,” said Hadjimichael.

“It’s adding more pluralism and nuance into how planning scenarios are established.”

Addressing a complex network of factors

In the Colorado River basin, decision-makers grapple with a complex network of factors, including balancing water needs for growing populations and farmers while ensuring compliance with water-sharing agreements.

“The problem is there is not a single criterion that captures everybody and what they care about,” noted Hadjimichael.

“Maybe you have a very large farm, and maybe I have a very small farm. And maybe we grow different things. It’s hard to use a single factor to find out scenarios that would make us all happy, or make us all unhappy.”

The storylines generated by FRNSIC can help policymakers explore various drought scenarios, shedding light on potential consequences when populations adapt and make changes.

“These drought scenarios can be used to illuminate potential consequences, and therefore be used in negotiations or when asking stakeholders for their input,” Hadjimichael added.

A collaborative effort

This latest study on Colorado river planning involved contributions from several notable institutions.

Co-authors include Patrick Reed, professor at Cornell University; Julianne Quinn, assistant professor at the University of Virginia; and Chris Vernon, geospatial scientist, and Travis Thurber, software engineer, both at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Together, they strive to provide practical solutions to the daunting challenges posed by climate change and uncertainty.

The study is published in the journal Earth’s Future.

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