Colorado River Sustainability Requires Balancing Supply and Demand for Water Resources and Responsible Hydropower
via American Rivers
By Matt Niemerski
Director, Western Water Policy
June 15, 2012
Thirty million people in the Southwest use the Colorado River’s water for their material sustenance; millions more use the river itself for recreation and spiritual enjoyment. The river quenches our thirst, feeds our souls, and enlivens our senses.
We are not the only inhabitants using this river. Its waters and canyons provide a vibrant but deeply threatened ecosystem for untold numbers of plant and animal species. These competing demands make the Colorado River one of the most contested and controlled rivers on Earth. Over the last decade, humans have drained all of the river’s water – all 5 trillion gallons – before it reaches the Sea of Cortez.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is the second-largest producer of hydropower in the United States. Last week, Reclamation Commissioner Michael Connor discussed regulatory and policy hurdles facing hydropower and how the Bureau of Reclamation is planning for a possible water crisis.
States in the Western U.S., and particularly in the Colorado River Basin, will face an unprecedented water supply crisis in the coming decades. Extended drought, climate change, and increasing population have created competition for water supplies. Water scarcity is further compounded by declining availability of fresh water in aquifers across the West based on historic use.
Read more at American Rivers.
Sander van der Leeuw, the dean of the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, is among the six winners of the 2012 United Nations Champions of the Earth award. Professor van der Leeuw, an archaeologist and historian by training, was recognized in the science and innovation category for his research in human-environmental relations and the scientific study of innovation as a societal process. He is one of 51 champion laureates who have received the UN award since it was launched in 2005.
Freshwater resources might become the most limited resource in the future due to rising demands, climate change, and the degradation of aquatic ecosystems. While the urgency of this challenge is uncontested, water governance regimes still struggle to employ suitable responses. They lack of: taking a comprehensive perspective on water systems; focusing on social actors, their actions, needs, intentions, and norms as drivers of water systems; engaging in a discourse on tangible goals to provide direction for governance efforts; and promoting a comprehensive perspective on water sustainability that equally recognizes depletion, justice, and livelihood issues in the long-term. We present an approach that intends to overcome these limitations by putting the focus on what people do with water, and why, along with the impacts of these doings. First, we outline an integrated approach to water governance regimes, and then, we present a holistic set of principles by which to evaluate sustainable water governance. Solution-oriented research applying this approach integrates natural sciences and engineering perspectives on water systems with social science studies on water governance, while also specifying and applying normative principles for water sustainability. The approach we develop herein can be used to reform and innovate existing water governance regimes as well as stimulate transformative governance research.