Sustaining the Upper Colorado River
The Colorado River basin supplies water to 40 million people and 5.5 million acres of farmland, and it provides critical in-stream and riparian habitat. Yet, water law historically reserved no water for riverine ecosystems. Today, the basin’s rivers routinely run so low that severe ecological damage to fish habitat occurs, with 44 of 49 native fish species endangered, threatened or extinct. Buying water to protect ecosystems through private water rights transactions – a proven market mechanism to restore river flows – entails conservation buyers pursuing individual water sellers on a mostly ad hoc basis instead of exercising an optimal, cost-effective regional strategy. This project, a collaboration between scholars with Woods Institute programs on Water in the West and the Global Freshwater Initiative, aims to deploy a novel ecohydrologic-economic-legal model that optimizes ecological preservation. The model identifies the most beneficial set of surface-water market transactions for ecosystems in the Upper Colorado River basin. Focusing on Colorado, this model will inform water-rights markets and help conservation organizations to maximize fish habitat restoration with their existing financial budgets. The model is the first basin-scale tool for optimizing environmental water market spending in the U.S., enabling transformation of these markets from localized, opportunistic purchases to optimized investment strategies. Indeed, this project comes at a critical time. As the Colorado River continues to experience extreme water scarcity, states are contemplating a new market-based program for interstate water deliveries under the Colorado River Compact.
Related News & Insights
Analysis: Outlook for the Colorado River Basin
The U.S. government is taking and considering unprecedented steps to conserve an increasingly scarce water supply for up to 40 million people and five million acres of farmland across two countries, seven U.S. states, and up to 30 federally recognized Native American Tribes. Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Postdoctoral Scholar Philip Womble explains how we got here and what to expect in the months to come.
Research: Clearing the path for environmental water transactions
Researchers studied water transactions in five Colorado River Basin states between 2014 and 2020 to better understand how — and how frequently — they actually occur. Their article, "Decoupling environmental water markets from water law," (Environmental Research Letters) found that substantial numbers of environmental water transactions have taken place, including in states with more restrictive laws.
Stanford economist Paul Milgrom won a Nobel Prize in part for his role in enabling today’s mobile world. Now he’s tackling a different 21st century challenge: water scarcity.
Professor Buzz Thompson, a global expert on water and natural resources, discusses the agreement—and challenges still facing the millions of people, creatures, plants, and ecosystems that depend on the Colorado for water.
Felicia Marcus, a fellow at the Woods Institute's Program on Water in the West, says it's no surprise that the seven states that share the Colorado haven't reached a solution on their own.
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