Helen Ingram and colleagues on a few necessary conditions for a good solution to water management issues: Good policy design contributes to three key public needs: progress in problem solving that will make tomorrow’s challenges easier than today’s; representation of sufficient interests, so that the policy has a positive balance of support and is politically …
Continue reading ‘Characteristics of a good water policy solution’ »
It’s monsoon season here in New Mexico, which means thunderstorms popping up here and there and, one hopes, everywhere around the state. In my blog stats, I notice that around this time of year I frequently get traffic for people searching for things like “how much rain did Albuquerque get today”. I’m writing this as …
Continue reading ‘How much rain did Albuquerque get last night?’ »
There are many things that represent the profound, ambiguous complexity that is the United States of America – full of ambitious arrogance, profound success and the inevitable clumsiness when power combines with unintended consequences. Hoover Dam is one of them.
[View the story “California drought” on Storify]
I’m not sure “Utah shouldn’t build that pipeline because California might need our water” sounds like a winning political argument, at least if you’re having the argument in Utah. I’m not saying it’s not accurate. Overdevelopment of Upper Colorado River Basin water right now clearly poses a risk of colliding with the Upper Basin’s obligation …
Continue reading ‘Utah and California, sharing a watershed’ »
No Endangered Species Act litigation required for this project on the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico: The Rio Grande is recovering some native vegetation with irrigation water typically used by farmers. The International Boundary and Water Commission oversees water treaties between the United States and Mexico. But lately the agency has invested in river …
Continue reading ‘What water sharing and collaboration can look like’ »
Not a big fire, or a bad fire, at least not yet. Until humans arrived in force to change things, fires were common in those mountains. It’s a fire-adapted ecosystem. We’ve got to get used to the smoke.
Laughlin, Nevada: The river is the focal point — and reason behind — the town’s existence. Without it there would be no casinos. During the summer months, the river is more of a factor in the Laughlin experience than at any other time of year. The all-too-easy-to-adopt thought that Laughlin is too hot in the …
Continue reading ‘The Colorado River is no one thing, episode XXVI’ »
Let’s revisit regulated deficit irrigation and the analysis Mike Cohen did last year of the problems and opportunities associated with forage crops in the Colorado River Basin, shall we? Golf and the Bellagio Fountain are easy targets. But if you’re not talking about alfalfa, you’re not being serious. Here’s Cohen et al.: Irrigated pasture and …