The ongoing Colorado River Basin drought has extensive impacts throughout the West, including water shortages for homes and crops and decreased generation of hydroelectric power. ![]() ![]() “For future work, collection and analysis of more remnant wood can provide further documentation of this second century drought,” added Woodhouse. “It should provide information to help water managers during this drought and plan for even more persistent and severe droughts than previously considered.” “The results of this work can provide water managers with an increased understanding of the range of flow variability in the Colorado River,” added Gangopadhyay. Water managers may use this new extended dataset to understand past droughts better and plan for future droughts. It’s quite remarkable,” said Edward Cook, a dendochronologist at Columbia University. “It’s quite compelling from the available tree-ring data that the second century experienced an extraordinarily severe drought, highly persistent, and very intense. “Although tree-ring data are sparse back to the second century, this extreme drought event is also documented in paleoclimatic data from lakes, bogs and caves,” said Connie Woodhouse, a professor at the University of Arizona and a study co-author. The research found that compared to the current 22-year drought in the Colorado River, with only 84% of the instrumental period (1906–2021) average flow at the Lees Ferry gage, the flow during a 22-year period in the second century was much lower, just 68% of this average flow. “While there has been research that shows extended dry periods in the southwest back to the eighth century, this reconstruction of Colorado River streamflow extends nearly 800 years further into the past.” “Previous studies have been limited to the past 1,200 years, but there are a limited number of paleorecords of moisture variability available back 2,000 years,” said Subhrendu Gangopadhyay, lead study author and an engineer at the Bureau of Reclamation. It reveals a greater range of natural hydroclimatic variability in the Colorado River than previously recognized, highlighting a need for water managers to adjust expectations and prepare for even more intense drought. The new study, published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, used tree-ring data and other climate records to identify a drought period unmatched in severity by the current drought or other ancient droughts. At just 68% of the river’s average flow rate, the megadrought is the most severe drought discovered in the arid region yet. An even more intense “megadrought” hit the region around 1,800 years ago, a new study reveals. WASHINGTON-The ongoing severe drought in the Colorado River Basin has led to the river flowing at 84% of its historic average flow. A new study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, used tree rings to uncover the most severe drought in 2,000 years of the river’s history. Tidal river: A tidal river is a river whose flow and level are influenced by tides.Lake Powell, a major reservoir along the Colorado River, was at less than half its capacity in 2014. Virgin river: If in a arid zones like deserts, a river water may completely dry before it joins another river or ocean, then it is called as Virgin river. It is that type of river in which there is neither scouring and nor silting.Īdditional Information Flashy river: If the flood rise and flood fall in a river is sudden, then it is called as Flashy river.There is a decrease in the bed elevation in the direction of the flow of the river due to the scouring of the sediments from the bed.It is also known as a scouring type river. ![]() Aggrading rivers also known as Accreting Rivers.As the silting process goes on, the bed slope of aggrading rivers get increased, which is shown below.These rivers collect sediments and build up its bed by silting.The braided pattern in the river develops after local deposition of coarser material, which cannot be transported under prevailing conditions of flow and which subsequently grows into island consisting of coarse as well as fine material. Braided river: When a river flows in two or more channels around alluvial island, it is known as Braided river.
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