Restoring the Colorado River – Challenges and Opportunities

The watershed-scale changes to stream flow, sediment supply, and ecosystems will be reviewed, and a large-scale assessment will be provided of the environmental challenges in each part of the Colorado River network. In some places, small improvements are being achieved by re-operations of dams but elsewhere, the limiting factors to ecosystem recovery cannot be addressed without re-evaluating how societal water supply and hydropower needs are met. Elsewhere, the fundamental agreements that regulate water supply may have to be renegotiated. The speaker, John (Jack) C. Schmidt is Professor of Watershed Sciences at Utah State University.