Market-based approach to managing water in the Colorado River basin could provide more reliable supplies for farmers, communities, and industry amid ongoing drought and excess demand.
Market-based approach to managing water in the Colorado River basin could provide more reliable supplies for farmers, communities, and industry amid ongoing drought and excess demand. The right market design and a little extra investment could also help threatened fish species, researchers have found.
The study, published June 20 in Nature Sustainability, details a new system for leasing rights to water from the basin while reallocating some water to imperiled habitats.
Not enough river water to go around. When the seven states of the Colorado River basin first divided water rights in the 1920s, they allocated more than the river could reliably deliver, especially during periods of drought. Today, the basin supplies drinking water to 40 million people and irrigation to 5 million acres of farmland across the southwestern United States, 30 tribal nations, and parts of Mexico.
Read More at: Stanford University
