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Colorado River Futures Program

Competition for scarce Colorado River water resources is nothing new, but the conflicts that prompted the seven basin states to negotiate the 1922 Colorado River Compact have grown considerably fiercer and more complex in recent decades. 

Colorado River Solutions

With cities, farms, and industry across seven states and two countries competing over river flows that are dwindling due to climate change, the Colorado River Basin faces some serious long-term problems. Fixing them will require a basin-wide vision with broad public support.  But many of the stakeholders essential to building that vision and support – tribes, conservation groups, small-scale farmers, the recreation industry, scientists, economists, fishermen -- have a limited voice in the current decision making processes that determine who gets how much water when. Moreover, concern is growing even those with a seat at the table today that durable, basin-wide solutions are illusive.

Carpe Diem West is playing a unique role in the Colorado Basin bringing together key interests around the notion that long-term solutions will need to do 2 things: (1) address the new climate reality; and (2) be Basinwide. 

With its strong network of leaders in the Basin and unique convening power, combined with its partnerships with key experts and academics at the University of Colorado, University of Utah and University of Montana, Carpe Diem West is preparing a vision for the Colorado River’s future that is durable, equitable and workable for all interests.

In the first phase of Carpe Diem's Colorado River Futures program, we produced Thinking Like a River Basin: Leaders’ Perspectives on Options and Opportunities in Colorado River Management, (April 14, 2011). The Leaders’ Perspectives report was prepared by CDW in conjunction with the Center for Natural Resources and Environmental Policy at the University of Montana, and is based on interviews with 35 influential stakeholders and political leaders in the Colorado River Basin. These interviews focused on each participant’s views of the challenges facing the Colorado Basin in the next 15 years, and what potential changes to existing rules and institutions might be helpful in meeting those challenges. While the interviewees’ responses produced nothing resembling a consensus, the report does identify some intriguing trends that bode well for the prospect of creating long-term, sustainable solutions for the Colorado and its tributaries.

Building on that progress, produced a second report, Governing Like a River Basin (Dec. 2011), that explored different models for addressing issues in complex aquatic ecosystems with myriad competing consumptive demands.

Together these two reports have sparked a critically important dialogue in the Basin about different approaches forward.  With the release of the Bureau’s Basin Study in the coming months, Carpe Diem West is poised to facilitate the critical conversation about the next steps forward.


"Because of Carpe Diem West, and it's positive, broad reaching safe table, new perspectives are being brought to the forefront under a cover for those at the table looking for ideas but perhaps uncomfortable at putting them out there.” 

Eric Kuhn General Manager, Colorado River Water Conservation District


Background Information 

"Governing Like A River Basin: Options for Expanded Stakeholder Engagement in the Colorado River Basin," Carpe Diem West & The University of Montana, December 2011

"Thinking Like a River Basin: Leaders' Perspectives on Options and Opportunities in Colorado River Management", Carpe Diem West & The University of Montana, April 2011

April 2011 Bureau of Reclamation SECURE Water Act Report discussing climate change impacts for the Colorado Basin:
Fact Sheet / Full Report (discussing the Colorado and 6 other basins)

Denver Post Op-Ed, Dr. Doug Kenney, February 24, 2011

Rethinking the Future of the Colorado River (Draft Interim Report of the Colorado River Governance Initiative, December 2010)

Dr. Doug Kenney's 2010 CRWUA Presentation Video

Colorado River Law and Policy FAQs

University of Colorado Western Water Policy Program

University of Montana Center for Natural Resources & Environmental Policy

Bureau of Reclamation Colorado River Basin Water Supply & Demand Study

Colorado River Water Users Association