1. Climate Change and Western Water Management Curt Brown, Director - Research and Development Climate Change Workshop 2008 North Platte, NE May 21

2. 58 Hydropower facilities powering over 6 million homes 348 Reservoirs 254 Diversion dams 16,000 Miles of canals $9 Billion annual agricultural benefits M&I benefits to more than 31 million people More than $12 billion avoided flood damages since 1959 308 public recreation areas visited by more than 90 million people each year 245 Million acre-feet of water storage

3. Snowmelt Timing Stewart et al. 2004

4. Variability in Projections 1 Colorado River THE PAST THE FUTURE

5. Changes? Natural Hydroclimate –Monthly-Mean Precipitation, Temp, & Runoff –Drought cycles –Extreme Events

6. Changes? Water Demand –human and vegetation Power Demand System Capacity –Water and Power Supply –Size and Timing of flood control space; –Cold-Pool Assets;

7. Changes? Drinking Water Quality Environment –Aquatic Temps –Instream Flows

8. Changes? Delta conditions –Levee Stability –Seawater Intrusion

9. Climate Change and Western Water Group (C-CAWWG) Goal is to develop a coordinated interagency R&D plan: (1) steered by user needs, (2) incorporating expert review, (3) delivering R&D products to users, and (4) obtaining user feedback to steer next research steps.

10. Coordinating Office NOAA ESRL Physical Sciences Division Climate Change and Western Water Group ….Spanning the Hydrologic Cycle Climate Change and Western Water Group (CCAWWG) “Understanding and Predicting Short and Long-term Climate Variations” “Surface Water, Ground Water, and Aquatic Species Sciences” “Western Water Manager” Coordinating Office Reclamation R&D Office Coordinating Office USGS Rocky Mountain Science Center

11. C-CAWWG Workshop Denver, Colorado February 2008

12. Examples of User Priorities Region-specific Literature Summaries Communicating uncertainties associated with climate change Predicting extreme events in a changing climate Downscaled data at finer resolutions

13. Downscaled climate projections USBR – U. of Santa Clara – Lawrence Livermore Lab dataset (http://gdo- dcp.ucllnl.org/downscaled_cmip3_projecti ons/).http://gdo- dcp.ucllnl.org/downscaled_cmip3_projecti ons/