Colorado Water Management Plan Climate Change Review

Colorado Water Management Plan Climate Change Review

I need some help finishing this essay for a Western Water Resource Management class. Please find the essay prompt along with the Water Plan that I have chosen to review, and the writing that I have completed so far below.

Plan Review : Each student will produce a 4-page review (~1500 words)

of a current water management plan- choose 1 of the 3 available on the D2L site:

1. ColoradoWaterPlan 2. CO River_MovingFwd 3.Columbia_LwrRecPlan

Each review is to include:

a) the background of the plan (why written, audience, authors) and the key elements or directives of the plan.

[~1 page]

b) your evaluation of the impact/resource value of the plan (what it offers to water management), using

references you’ve used this semester. [~ 3 pages]

The western United States has historically been a rough place to live with a harsh and unforgiving climate, making it a difficult area to settle and tame once the United States acquired it. This being said many of the states in the western United States are rich with natural resources such as gold and made them a desirable place to start a new life with new opportunities. Colorado in particular has seen consistent growth in its population which has exploded from 1 million in 1930 to over 5 million present day with predictions for that number to double by 2050. Being a western state, Colorado’s climate extremely arid but is fortunate enough to have a lot of large mountain ranges whose snowpack act as the state’s natural “water towers” that can sustain the state through the drier summer months after particularly wet winters. With this in mind we must also remember that a large portion of the population in Colorado lives outside of the mountains on the front range or on the plains in the eastern half of the state. This eastern population also requires water, making efficient water infrastructure and effective water plans a necessity for the entire state to receive the water that they need, especially in the plains where rainfall is scarce and water is needed to irrigate crops. This paper aims to review the Colorado Water Plan that has been put in to place to ensure that the rapidly growing state population will have access to clean water for the foreseeable future and is adaptable to the effects of climate change within the region. The Colorado River also supplies a large region of the western United States and part of northern Mexico, making the necessity for an effective water plan not only a state responsibility but an overarching regional one as well. The Colorado Water Plan was also produced in order to inform the public and the local governments of the changes and precautions that must be made to ensure a secure water resource for many decades to come. The Colorado Water Plan was created by the board members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board in conjunction with various members of the Colorado state government, including the Governor. The Colorado Water Plan’s main body consists of eleven chapters that have a specific purpose to the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s overall goal. As stated in the introduction, chapter one provides a background for Colorado’s need for a water plan, chapters two through five focus on the foundational elements of Colorado’s water management, chapters six through nine discuss the strategies that must be put into place to meet future water needs, chapter nine looks at funding opportunities, and finally chapters 10 and 11 address how future updates would be applied to the water plan. The Colorado Water Conservation Board also lays out several “measurable objectives” that they believe will put the state in a safe position with its water supply for the foreseeable future if these objectives are reached by specific deadlines. These objects concern the topics of the Supply-Demand Gap, Conservation, Land Use, Agriculture, Storage, Watershed Health, Environment, Recreation, Funding, Education, Outreach, and Innovation.

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