Cockroaches have nothing on the water authority. Both would survive nuclear winter. A giant asteroid could wipe out half the globe, and the authority would march into the crater to file for water rights.

Flood Control Pond, north Albuquerque

It’s no Yolo Bypass, but the Albuquerque Metropolitan Flood Control Authority pond up by my work is testament to the fact that if you add water to an arid ecosystem, stuff happens. Located at the end of the concrete-lined North Pino Arroyo, the pond is a holding basin, design to trap sediments and contaminants before the water is passed on to the main flood control channel that carries it on out to the Rio Grande.

It always has water, which means it always has birds. Today, when I stopped by on my bike ride, I saw two American kestrels, a pair of male red-winged blackbirds, a huge number of pigeons (I counted 144, but never believe anyone who tells you they’ve counted that many pigeons), a killdeer and 12 mallards. With the power plant behind it, the pond has what a colleague described as a sort of post-apocalyptic feel, but I’ve grown rather fond of it.

It’s the first time I’ve seen the killdeer or the red-winged blackbird there since September. Sign of spring?

courtesy USGS

As a native Southern Californian with a deep attachment to its deserts, this paper is just heartbreaking. Lesley DeFalco of the USGS and colleagues describe the effect of variable climate extremes and wildfire in the last decade on populations of desert plants, most especially Yucca brevifolia – the Joshua Tree:

Accentuated ENSO episodes and more frequent wildfires are expected for the desert Southwest and will likely shift Y. brevifolia population structure toward tall, old adults with fewer opportunities for plant recruitment, thus imperiling the persistence of this unique plant community.

Flows on the more southerly basins, including the Virgin, San Juan and Little Colorado, look better.

Courtesy Colorado Basin River Forecast Center

courtesy NASA, June 2004

Similar thing happened with the Cienega de Santa Clara, an accidental wetland formed of ag drain water in the delta. The intent was to just dump the icky water where it wouldn’t cause trouble, and look what resulted.

I’m reminded of this by Matt Weiser’s tale in the Sacramento Bee today of what has happened this year in the Yolo Bypass, and area west of Sacramento that’s filled with water this year following the West’s bodacious recent storms:

The river’s weir and bypass system was approved in 1917 as a tool to protect Sacramento from flooding by diverting high water onto dormant agricultural land. Only much later did scientists realize this occasional flooding replicates the natural wetlands that once made the Sacramento Valley among the planet’s richest wildlife spectacles.

In addition to the stories of scientists who study western climate, we included activities for young people to do for themselves. Weather and climate are the most accessible of sciences, because they’re happening all around you. That makes them a great teaching tool.

This morning, I’ve got the rain gauge in the kitchen melting to see how much liquid precip we got overnight, and I’ve been in the backyard to measure snow depth.

Here are the basics: Take a ruler outside. Look for places where the snow has fallen on a flat surface, like a picnic table or the top of your car. Stick the ruler down through the snow, and note the height of the top of the snow on the ruler. Take three measurements and average them.

I have learned in doing this myself over the years that I’m not very good at “eyeballing” it and guessing the depth, a reminder of the usefulness of measuring.

The Tree Rings’ Tale: Understanding Our Changing Climate (Worlds of Wonder), available now.

(Note that the picture’s from the book, not from today.)

After conducting what they say is one of the most rigorous studies ever of the Colorado River Basin, state officials concluded there may be some additional water available for development and use — or there may not, depending on what numbers are plugged into the computer models.

One of the models suggested there could be as much as 900,000 acre-feet of water in the Colorado River Basin available for consumptive use under the terms of the Colorado River Compact. Consumptive use permanently removes water from a watershed. Agricultural activities, irrigation and industrial cooling operations are example of consumptive uses. However another model suggested that, if climate impacts are more severe, Colorado may have no water left to develop.

There are continued efforts to refine the modeling work and come up with the “right” answer, but what we’ve really got here is a classic case of decision-making in the face of uncertainty that the models ultimately cannot resolve.

Mike Hulme, Roger Pielke Jr. and Suraje Dessai have been exploring this question, and offered this helpful analysis recently. It’s focused on climate modeling, which is only a part of the Colorado River problem, but I think it applies more broadly to the issues Berwyn is writing about:

Guaranteeing precision and accuracy over and above what science can credibly deliver risks contributing to flawed decisions. We are not suggesting that scientists abandon efforts to model the behaviour of the climate system. Far from it. Models as exploratory tools can help identify physically implausible outcomes and illuminate the boundaries where uncertain knowledge meets fundamental ignorance. But using models in this way will require a significant rethink on the role of predictive climate science in decision-making. In some cases the prudent course of action will be to let policymakers know the very real limitations of predictive science. For decision-makers, the lesson is to plan for a range of possible alternatives. Instead of seeking certainty, decision-makers need to ask questions of scientists such as ‘What physically could not happen?’ or ‘What is the worst that could happen?’

After a good rain, the concrete channel that collects rainwater from much of Albuquerque has the dirty-brown look of a silty, Western arroyo in a storm.

But the initial wave of water that traces down the North Diversion Channel is different, quintessentially urban. Water-quality expert Bruce Thomson calls it the “first flush.”

The big stuff is obvious — water bottles, plastic cups, wads of paper. We’re messy, and the North Diversion Channel, which collects runoff from 110 square miles of mostly urban watershed, is the last resting place for a lot of what we idly toss aside.

But what you can’t see may be more important — the thin film of motor oil, toxic metal dust, asbestos from the brake linings of our cars. Perhaps most important, according to state and federal regulators, is fecal coliform bacteria, which indicate the water is contaminated with animal and human feces.

An invisible film of grit builds up on the city when it’s dry, until the next big rain washes it down the North Diversion Channel and toward the Rio Grande.

Happily, the USGS also digitized LaRue’s maps, which are a joy. Here’s the Salton Sea and Lower Colorado, circa 1916. If you want to see the full size, click through, as I’ve uploaded the highest resolution Flickr would let me get away with.

* For future reference, the files are in a format called “DJVU”, for which a free reader exists here.

I also wonder, out loud, whether the Mormons did some observing of their Hispanic neighbors to figure out the irrigation system in Utah, which was like the acequia system. Hmm…

Irrigation ditch constructed by Mormon pioneers, Moenkopi Canyon, Coconino County, Arizona. Echo Cliffs quadrangle, August, 1909. Courtesy USGS

To refresh memory, the first waves of Mormon settlers arrived in Utah in 1847 with little knowledge of irrigation practices, having come from a wet place. But they quickly established a very successful community-based irrigation culture. In fact, according to Donald Worster’s excellent biography of John Wesley Powell, the early Mormons did exactly what Eric surmised:

Before abandoning their earlier home in Nauvoo, Illinois, the Saints went on trade missions to Santa Fe where they observed the irrigation practices of the Hispanic communities in the Rio Grande Valley. The basic principle in those towns was that water must be shared for the common good, not made the exclusive property or right of any individual. Beyond picking up that cooperative principle, Mormons borrowed the time-tested methods of building community ditches, or acequias, brought from Spain to the New World and merged with native American techniques.