The Clear Creek watershed provides water to intensive irrigation and the city of Buffalo. Using a Decision Support System which leverages a biophysical-allocation model coupled with a hydrologic model, we determined tradeoffs between management decisions to increase water supply for future population growth.

During normal to dry water years the vibrant Middle Popo Agie river, which flows through the town of Lander, is depleted due to numerous upstream diversions. Water quality of the river degrades and fish are not able to propagate through the system. We developed a web-based decision support system to assist watershed managers in navigating decisions pertaining to irrigation efficiency updates and water markets to increase instream flows.

We conducted a study asking the question, “How does current water law impact streamflow dynamics in the Bighorn Basin, WY & MT”. We integrated a water right spatial dataset into a coupled allocation-hydrologic model, exploring the effects of resource distribution and consumption under standard efficiencies. Our study brought insights to both basin hydrologic dynamics under current resource allocation and leveraging western water law as management tool for water conservation.