Colorado River Coding

Small and bigger coding efforts to support Colorado River work. See Folder contents #1-20 below.

Most of these efforts are beginning coding efforts and works in progress. Find current versions at https://github.com/dzeke/ColoradoRiverCoding.

Dr. David E. Rosenberg

david.rosenberg@usu.edu | @WaterModeler

April 6, 2022

Utah State University

Directions to View Results

1. Open a subfolder. See Explanation of Contents below.
2. Find the PDF file and open it. The PDF file is auto-generated and has documentation/explanation of methods and results.

Requirements

• R version 4.1.1. Download from https://cran.r-project.org/.
• R Studio 1.1.456. Download from https://www.rstudio.com/.

Directions to Reproduce Results

1. Download this repository to your local machine (towards top of webpage, click green Code button => Download Zip). Unzip contents.
2. Download and install R and RStudio (see Requirements).
3. Within any downloaded subfolder, open the .Rproject file. R Studio will open.
4. Select the tab for the R Markdown file (.Rmd) and click Knit.
5. The code will generate a single PDF file with results and documentation. The PDF file will have the same filename as the .Rmd file.
6. If the subfolder does not have an .Rmd file, select the tab for the .R file in R Studio. Select all the code (Ctrl-A), and run (Ctrl-enter or click the Run button on the tool bar below the file tabs). The results will generate in the console.

Explanation of Contents

1. 500PlusPlan - Total costs for different 500,000 acre-feet plan for Lake Mead prices and volumes.
2. BlogDrafts - Preprints of blogs in the series "Encouraging more water conservation in the Colorado River Basin".
3. CombinedPowellMead - Plots of combined Lake Powell and Lake Mead storage over time.
4. EvapCalcs - Plots to show reservoir evaporation for Lakes Mead and Powell as a function of reservoir storage/level. This supports an alternative management paradigm where reservoir evaporation is counted as part of lower basin users consumptive use.
5. GrandCanyonInterveningFlow - Plots of Grand Canyon intervening flow between Lake Powell and Lake Mead to help characterize inflows to Lake Mead.
6. HeadwatersReservoirs - Storage for Upper Basin headwaters reservoirs (Fontenelle, Flaming Gorge).
7. ICS - Plots of intentionally created surplus (ICS) for Lake Mead account balances, puts and takes, limits, and comparison of ICS efforts to mandatory Drought Contigency Plan contributions.
8. InterimShortageGuidelines - Plots of cutbacks in deliveries as a function of Lake Mead level. Both for the Interim Guidelines and newly released Drought Contingency Plan.
9. LakePowellTemperatureScenarios - Calcualtes the Lake Powell release temperatures for different lake levels. Assigns release temperatures to different fish scenarios.
10. LowerBasinAgUses - Plots of CRSS consumptive use input data for Lower Basin states.
11. MeadInflowSimulations - Adapt Lake Mead releases to reservoir inflow. Smulations of Lake Mead draw down, stabilization, and recover for different scenarios of Lake Mead inflow and addition water conservation beyond mandatory targets.
12. MeadPowellPlots - Visualization of the Lake Powell-Lake Mead Equalization rules. This is Powell annual release as a function of Powell storage and Mead storage. Also includes plots that show the reservoir zones.
13. ModelMusings - Pilot flex accounting to encourage more water conservation in a combined Lake Powell-Lake Mead system. Cloud-based interactive model for the Colorado River basin. When participants synchronously connect, they can role play Upper Basin, Lower Basin, Mexico, and other parties. Participants make year-to-year water conservation, consumption, purchase, and sale decisions for their party while they track other players' choices, account balances, reservoir storage, and impacts to Grand Canyon fish.
14. Powell10Year - Plots showing Lake Powell 10-year releases in comparison to Colorado River Compact Article III(d) requirement
15. Pre1922CompactWaterUse - Table of Pre-1922 Compact water use by state.
16. ProtectLakePowell - Figure of tools to protect Lake Powell elevations of 3,525 and 3,490 feet.
17. Runge_MCDM_Analysis - interactive parallel coordinate plot visualization of the 18 objectives use in the analysis by Runge et al of Glend Canyon Dam management alternatives. Runge, M. C., LaGory, K. E., Russell, K., Balsom, J. R., Butler, R. A., Coggins, J. L. G., Grantz, K. A., Hayse, J., Hlohowskyj, I., Korman, J., May, J. E., O'Rourke, D. J., Poch, L. A., Prairie, J. R., VanKuiken, J. C., Van Lonkhuyzen, R. A., Varyu, D. R., Verhaaren, B. T., Veselka, T. D., Williams, N. T., Wuthrich, K. K., Yackulic, C. B., Billerbeck, R. P., and Knowles, G. W. (2015). "Decision analysis to support development of the Glen Canyon Dam long-term experimental and management plan." 2015-5176, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA. http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/sir20155176.
18. TimeToDeadPool - a steady deterministic scenario analysis of the number of years to hit Lake Mead dead pool (or other target elevation) given a starting storage volume and steady reservoir inflow. Used to explore scenarios of inflow from 7 to 14 maf per year every year and identify potential effects of additional voluntary water conservation.
19. TribalWater - Digitizes some of the data in the Tribal Water Study by the USBR.
20. UpperBasinAgriculture - Costs of demand management in Upper Basin.

License

BSD-3-Clause (https://github.com/dzeke/ColoradoRiverFutures/blob/master/LICENSE). Available to use, modify, distribute, etc. for free. All modified or derivative products must use the same BSD-3-Clause license. This license keeps this work in the public domain forever.

Requested Citation

David E. Rosenberg (2021). "Colorado River Coding." Utah State University. Logan, Utah. https://github.com/dzeke/ColoradoRiverCoding.