The 1,450 mile Colorado River is the Southwest’s only major river, providing drinking water for about 40 million people as well as irrigation for close to six million acres of farmland. However, below average snowfall and drought conditions are causing a significant decrease in its freshwater resources. We have gathered 13 interesting facts about the Colorado River’s shrinking levels.
The Colorado River Basin stretches across seven states: from Wyoming across Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and California.
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The Colorado River Basin covers about 246,000 square miles.
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The Rocky Mountains snowpack that flows into the Colorado River is at half of normal levels again this year.
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Some global-warming studies conclude that rising temperatures will reduce the Colorado’s average flow after 2050 by five to 35 percent.
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Each year, 16.5 million acre-feet of Colorado River water is apportioned to the states of the Colorado Basin and Mexico.
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The Colorado River basin has lost 15.6 cubic miles of freshwater in the last 10 years.
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Since December 2004, the basin of the Colorado River lost nearly 53 million acre feet of freshwater (about 75% of the loss was groundwater).
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The Colorado River has been experiencing 14 years of drought which is nearly unrivaled in the past 1,250 years.
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Most years, every drop of water is pumped out of the Colorado River before it empties into the Gulf of California.
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2000 to 2014 was the lowest 15-year period since the closure of Glen Canyon Dam in 1963, with an average unregulated inflow of 8.39 million acre-feet, or 78% of the 30-year average (1981-2010).
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The Colorado River supplies hydropower plants that generate more than 10 billion kilowatt-hours annually.
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Lake Mead, the largest reservoir on the Colorado River, has dropped over 140 feet over the past 15 years.
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If Lake Mead continues to drop and fall below 1075 feet, water rationing would result in Southern Nevada losing 13,000 acre-feet per year and Arizona losing 320,000 acre-feet per year.
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