COLLABORATION WITH MANAGERS ON INNOVATIVE SCIENCE IN THE COLORADO RIVER (Invited Presentation)

Researchers often are encouraged to work with managers to produce more applicable science. Our experience working with operational scientists and resource managers in the Colorado River Basin has shown that such collaboration can produce interesting and innovative science. This talk highlights research questions that grew out of collaborations between scientists and managers working in the Colorado River Basin. Spurred by the question of whether warming has altered Colorado River flow and drought conditions, we have combined statistical and mechanistic models and observational and tree-ring information to develop new ways of looking at past droughts and to understand how drought might unfold in a warmer future. Specific projects have focused on understanding the drivers of droughts during the past four centuries, evaluating how warming influences flow magnitudes and regimes in the Colorado River Basin, how antecedent conditions may inform water supply forecasts over the basin, and how warming could have altered past droughts. Collaboration among scientists and managers with diverse goals and perspectives resulted in the development of new ways to approaching research questions and present information, including tying the results to a framework developed for Reclamation’s 2012 Colorado River Basin Supply and Demand Study.