Brett Walton of Circle of Blue via http://www.circleofblue.org reports on a three-year, landmark study completed by the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation that highlights the growing disparity between water supply and water demand in seven western U.S. states. These states face a “significant gap” between their water demands and the available supply from [...]

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A new research study featured in the latest issue of the American Fisheries Society’s Fisheries Magazine explores how a warming climate is affecting trout streams throughout the Rocky Mountains, and urges quick action if native trout populations are to persist in diminishing cold-water habitats. One important point of the article is that even with better [...]

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Decreased snowpack in the Rocky Mountains may compound problems for Colorado, Arizona, California, and other Western states. On April 10th, 61 percent of the lower 48 states were listed by the U.S. Drought Monitor to be in abnormally dry or drought conditions. To assess the vulnerabilities of the watershed and consider how water supply and [...]

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Habitat loss and fragmentation are the greatest threats to species biodiversity. In our nation’s more arid environments, the vast bulk of all biodiversity is found in the increasingly fragile riparian buffers of our watersheds.  Healthy floodplains and other ecosystem functions rely directly on vital intact buffers.  For these important reasons, conservation and restoration activities must increasingly focus [...]

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In the latter part of the 19th century, species of the nonna­tive shrub tamarisk (also called saltcedar;) were introduced to the United States for use as ornamental plants and for erosion control.  According to the USGS, the period of tamarisk invasion coincided with changing physical conditions along western rivers associated with the construction and operation [...]

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