Water Availability

Hydrologic analysis of the alluvial aquifer in the Wet Mountain Valley has been undertaken using synoptic streamflow and groundwater-level elevation measurements, aquifer tests, water-quality sampling and data analysis, and numerical groundwater-flow modeling. These datasets together provide an encompassing view of the interconnected water resources in the area and allow for quantitative...

The Upper Yampa River Basin (UYRB) drains approximately 1,800 square miles west of the Continental Divide in northwestern Colorado. In 2019, the USGS, in cooperation with local stakeholders in the UYRB water community, initiated a study to characterize streamflow, suspended sediment, and nutrients using historic and recently acquired water-quality data from a long-term monitoring program initiated...

Reliable peak-streamflow data are critical to design transportation infrastructure, such as bridges, culverts, dams, and floodplain inundation maps. At gaged sites, where sufficient long-term streamflow data have been collected, statistics can be obtained from available publications, by an analysis of available data in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Information System (NWIS)...

Under-ice discharge is estimated using open-water reference hydrographs; however, the ratings for ice-affected sites are generally qualified as poor. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in collaboration with the Colorado Water Conservation Board, conducted a proof-of-concept to develop an alternative method for computing under-ice discharge using hydroacoustics and the Probability Concept.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Colorado Department of Transportation, determined the peak discharge, annual exceedance probability (flood frequency), and peak stage of two floods that took place on Big Cottonwood Creek at U.S. Highway 50 near Coaldale, Colorado (hereafter referred to as “Big Cottonwood Creek site”), on August 23, 2016, and on Fountain Creek below U.S...

The Upper Big Sandy Groundwater Management District is concerned with potentially declining groundwater levels and thus available groundwater in storage for the Upper Big Sandy alluvial aquifer in eastern Colorado This project evaluated changes in groundwater storage within the Upper Big Sandy Designated Groundwater Basin by updating water-budget results for the alluvial aquifer from the Denver...

Since the 1980s, a transit-loss accounting program has been used for daily accounting of native and transmountain water by the Colorado Division of Water Resources (CDWR) to determine transit losses and water allocations along Fountain Creek and Monument Creek, Colorado. The Colorado Water Science Center has been involved in developing, modifying, and supporting the program over the course of its...

The National Ground-Water Monitoring Network (NGWMN) is a compilation of selected wells monitoring groundwater aquifers all around the nation. The NGWMN Data Portal brings groundwater data together in one place to provide users with current and reliable information for the planning, management, and development of groundwater resources.

In 2017, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), studied floods in the historic record to produce a library of flood-inundation maps for the South Platte River at Fort Morgan, Colorado.

The objective of this project is to update the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe’s (UMUT) existing Groundwater Protection Plan to protect their valuable groundwater resources in Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.

StreamStats is a map based Web application that provides information that can be used by engineers, managers, and planners to make informed decisions on water-related activities. The map-based user interface can be used to delineate drainage areas, get basin characteristics and estimates of flow statistics. StreamStats allows for the analysis of upstream and downstream relations along streams. In...

Within the Southern Rockies Landscape Conservation Cooperative (SRLCC), streamflow information is needed for a wide variety of hydrologic conditions to understand streamflow in the context of ecological services, water availability and use, or water quality.