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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/beaver-dam-analogs-colorado-river-restoration/>
"Along a small tributary of the Colorado River outside Crested Butte, Colorado,
volunteers and workers in waders tromped out into the water and imitated
beavers. On summer days, against a backdrop of Rocky Mountain peaks, they piled
up larger branches and logs. Then, as water started pooling, they added smaller
sticks and layers of sediment.
“Everything about it is a little bit messy,” says Adde Sharp, Colorado River
watershed project coordinator for the National Forest Foundation (NFF).
Messiness is part of the point. These obstructions, built in 2021 and 2022, are
not stopping the water in streams like this one from flowing to the Colorado
River, but they are slowing it down, in an effort to maximize its benefits
before it flushes downstream.
The once-mighty river that hydrates and powers the American Southwest is in
crisis. About 19 percent less water is flowing through the Colorado River
compared to last century’s average. Some 40 million people in the US and Mexico
rely on the river for drinking water. The two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and
Lake Powell, are at or below a third of their full capacity. With no agreement
among the seven affected states on a plan to manage the dwindling flow, the
Biden administration earlier this year proposed imposing cuts on water usage.
Amid this crisis, scientists and nonprofits, including the NFF, are looking to
the river’s headwaters, using a strategy known as low-tech, process-based
restoration, or LTPBR, to improve wetlands and riparian landscapes along
smaller waterways that run into the Colorado River. By reinvigorating riverside
habitat that has been lost, these areas can help hold water higher in the
Colorado Basin watershed for longer — mitigating spring flooding and releasing
water slowly through drier months — as well as yielding a host of benefits for
the ecosystems along the way.
“You can’t put more water in the Colorado,” says Sharp, who is co-leading an
effort to apply the approach to more small rivers and creeks on national forest
land across the basin. “Let’s start at where the Colorado starts and make that
healthier.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
