Essay about The Colorado River

Water scarcity is increasing worldwide and dramatically affecting first world nations such as Spain, Australia, and the United States. All nations are now starting to recognize that the world's water is a finite resource, and that resource is being drastically altered in both availability and quality by development, climate change and population growth. In the United States, the Colorado River is experiencing rapid declines in volume. Recent studies and data suggest that the changes in frequency, intensity, and timing of the availability of water will have substantial impact on the way we live our lives in the 21st century and beyond. As Letmathe Brakeck said, “I am confident that, under present

The Colorado River Basin starts in the Rocky Mountains and cuts through 1500 miles of canyon lands and deserts of seven US states and two Mexican states to supply a collection of dams and reservoirs with water to help irrigate cropland, support 40 million people, and provide hydroelectric power for the inland western United States [1,2]. From early settlement, rights over the river have been debated and reassigned to different states in the upper and lower basin; however, all the distribution patterns lead to excessive consumption of the resource. In 1922, the seven US states signed into the Colorado River Compact, which outlined the policy for the distribution rights to the water [3], however, this compact was written during an exceptionally

Certain models predict that drought activity is expected to increase toward the end of the 21st century and particularly in the Colorado River Basin (MacDonald & Turner, 21260). When the dam was built in the early 20th century, annual flow was about 17.0 MAF (million acre-feet) at Lees Ferry, Arizona which is a few miles below the dam. Estimates calculating the past MAF of the Colorado River average to about 13.8-14.6 over the last 450 years. Thus, the dam was built in a period with an unexpectedly high MAF. Alarmingly in 2000 the river averaged less than 9 MAF. (Bolin, Seetharam, & Pompeii, 263). In 2002, the river reached a low of about 6.2 MAF (MacDonald & Turner, 21256). Some models estimate that the river could reach the range of 1.5 to 4.5 MAF in the next 30–50 years. (Bolin, Seetharam, & Pompeii, 271). The reduction of MAF in the Colorado River is due to drought. Droughts have been occurring throughout the 20th century with droughts from 1900-1904, 1924-1936, 1953-1964, and 1988-1991. These droughts are associated with warmer regional temperatures and the level of warming is deemed exceptional for the 21st century (MacDonald & Turner, 21257). Recently the Colorado River has experienced the lowest 5 year mean flows on record (MacDonald & Turner, 21257). If river flow is low, so is Lake Powell’s water level. One study suggests that Lake Powell have a 50% chance of receding to inoperable status by the 2020’s

Arizonans see California’s drought and water restrictions plastered all over the television and newspapers. Many Arizonans remain concerned about the well-being of Californians, while some may mistakenly think that it is not Arizona’s problem. I was one of those people, and while investigated the idea, discover how Arizona is in a bad situation because of it. What I, along with others, did not understand is the years of planning, legislation, and engineering that took place to get water to Arizona and the rest of the Southwest. The Southwest is an arid environment that relies on one river, the Colorado River, to deliver water to seven different

Arizona is running out of water, and Central Arizona, the region where metropolitan Phoenix is located and inhabited by most of Arizona’s population, approximately 4.5 million out of the 6 million, has been one of the hardest hit (“5 Reasons to Panic about Arizona's Water, and 5 Reasons Not to”). It is essential that Central Arizona reduces the water intake of its industries, agriculture, and households because Arizona has been in an extended drought since the 90’s, and it is expected to continue (Schultz). The drought is causing Arizona’s water sources, primarily reservoirs, the Colorado River, and underground, non-replenishable aquifers to diminish. In fact, the Colorado River is shrinking each year which is a serious problem because the Colorado River supplies millions of people with water across seven states (“Colorado River

Serving as the “lifeline of the Southwest,” and one of the most heavily regulated rivers in the world, the Colorado River provides water to 35 million people and more than 4 million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some 246,000 square miles.

The Colorado RIver is best known for being the principal river of the southern United States and Mexico, but it soon could lose that title. Running about 1,500 miles long, the river is a vital source of water for agricultural and urban areas in the southern desert lands of North America. However over the past decade or so, the river has begun to deteriorate. There are many causes and solutions to the deterioration of the Colorado River.

They describe the twentieth century as the hydraulic era, which all began do to water engineers. “ It has been argued that water engineering during the hydraulic era was a response to what water planners saw as the need to keep pace with a steadily increasing population and expanding agriculture across the American West” (175). They felt the need to build canals since they noticed the west experiencing periodic floods and droughts, allowing them to use it for items like watering their crops, which looking closely at it explains how Califor alone grows aproximately 60 percent of America’s produce. However others argued otherwise stating that the massive smount of water resources gathered by enginneering is what led to an increase in population growth overduing the amount the regioun could actually substain. Regardless, these actions have highly impacted and harmed the aquatic ecosystems found in lakes, natural rivers, and wet lands across the region.

For millions of years the Colorado River flooded the West with rich sediments, carving out the Grand Canyon, and shaping the Rocky Mountains. Today, agricultural, energy, and population demands have dwindled the once robust flow of water and its tributaries into streams that run dry, lakes that recede, and a Colorado River that hasn’t flowed into the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, since 1998.

Spaniards in the sixteenth century came upon it at the wrong time, saw an ocean moving south, and may have been discouraged. Where the delta began, at Old River, the water spread out even more through a palimpsest of bayous and distributary streams in forested palatal basins but this did not dissuade the French. When rivers go over their banks, the spreading water immediately slows up, dropping the heavier sediments. The finer the silt, the farther it is scattered, but so much falls close to the river that natural levees rise through time. In the Mississippi, whatever the arrested logs were called individually, they were all “snags,” and after the Army engineers had made Shreve, a civilian, their Superintendent of Western River Improvements he went around like a dentist yanking snags. People began to wonder if the levees could ever be high enough and strong enough to make the river safe. There was no high command in the fight against the water. Every atom that moves onward in the river, from the moment it leaves its home among the crystal springs or mountain snows, throughout the fifteen hundred leagues of its devious pathway, until it is finally lost in the vast waters of the Gulf, is controlled by laws as fixed and certain as those which direct the majestic march of the heavenly spheres. In 1882 came the most destructive flood of the nineteenth century. After breaking the levees in two hundred and eighty-four crevasses, the water spread out as much as seventy miles. In the fertile lands on the two sides of Old River, plantations were deeply submerged, and livestock survived in flatboats.

The Colorado River is a very important water source for the Southwest and its people. But I think the river is most important for the farmers.

The Colorado River is one of the U.S physical features, and it has the most interesting facts that may change overtime, such as where it begins, how many states and people does the water reach, and the difficulty of others from it’s drought.

The American River is a prime example of a multiple-use, water-resource system. It is the second biggest tributary to the Sacramento River, a basic part of the San Francisco Inlet/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta framework Its basin covers 2,163 mi2 of the western slope of the central Sierra Nevada (fig. 1) east of Sacramento, California. This complicated system consists of three major parts the North and Middle Forks, the South Fork, and the Lower American River downstream from Folsom Lake (fig. 1). These major forks and Folsom Lake represent a natural and modified system of streams and impoundments designed to meet the recreational and water-supply needs of many Californians.

Colorado is famous for being rich in natural resources. From the treasured gold and silver that helped incorporate the state into the Union, to the great Colorado River that provides millions of people throughout the west with water everyday. Yet, some of the most impactful contributors to the history and culture have been the resources of coal, oil, gas and as other "energy" supplies. These energy resources have provided jobs along with wealth in abundance across the state in classic boom and bust fashion. Colorado’s coal, oil and gas industries have also fueled controversial topics, including coke mining and hydraulic fracking. Today the switch to sustainable measures taking place in Colorado, such as solar and wind power, continue to shape history and culture. The steps provide constructive jobs, advocate for energy efficiency and produce a positive model to inspire as well as guide other states into a environmentally conscious world.

For millions of years the Colorado River has flowed untouched from the Southern Rocky Mountains down through the southeast of North America until finally emptying in the Gulf of California. However, in the wake of human migration in North America from Europe and development along the West Coast, nearly one hundred dams and diversions now prevent the Colorado River from reaching its delta and the Gulf. Approximately ninety percent of the water that previously flowed into Mexico has been appropriated for municipal and agricultural use in the United States.