Project Description: An ongoing drought in the Colorado River Basin has reduced levels in Lake Mead to the extent of triggering a reduction in Arizona’s Colorado River supply allocation under the Drought Contingency Plan agreement. Arizona State University and the Central Arizona Project have partnered to transition an operational hydrologic model to assess the climate and land use change risks to long-range water supply security in the basin. The hydrologic model will be parameterized and tested with NASA observations to build confidence in its performance at sub-basins scales. Stakeholder-informed scenarios of climate and land cover change will be used to generate simulations out to 2100 to capture range of uncertainties. 

End Users/Partners: Central Arizona Project and its network of Colorado River Basin partners (11 in total from seven states and the federal government). 

Data Sources, Models, Technology: NASA MODIS products (NDVI, LST, Snow cover, LAI, Albedo), SMAP products (SM), NLDAS-2 reanalysis products, LOCA downscaled climate products, EPA ICLUS land cover change products, Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model, statistical characterization tools.