Lower Santa Cruz River Basin Study Products Released
Photo credit: Dulcey Lima on Unsplash
Researchers at the University of Arizona have been working more than five years in partnership with the US Bureau of Reclamation and a consortium of agencies and water utilities across the Lower Santa Cruz River Basin (LSCRB) to study the impacts of climate change on water supplies and environmental conditions. The Study is the first direct assessment of the impacts of climate change on groundwater across the basin; it also considers impacts of reduced CAP deliveries and alternative growth scenarios. Dynamically downscaled climate projections were created for the study by the UA’s Chris Castro and Shin-I Chang.
The LSCRB Study, authorized under the 2009 Secure Water Act, focuses on identifying potential supply and demand imbalances within the study area, as well as adaptation strategies to address them. Although the final report from this study is not due to be released until the fall at the earliest, the UA team, Kathy Jacobs and Neha Gupta, has been authorized to release a summary of the study results as well as a publicly accessible science summary of the climate modeling outcomes. Neha is the lead author on the science summary, and both Kathy and Neha have been serving on the leadership team for the Study on an ongoing basis.