How We Hold on to Water in the Colorado River Basin
TNC and partners are restoring forests and repairing streams to help water last longer in the West.
By Kate O'Neill, Writer/Editor for The Nature Conservancy
The Colorado River Basin is facing one of the driest summers on record. Snow that came too little, too late—or not at all—has depleted water supplies heading into the dry season. Throughout the West, communities are grappling with water shortages, wildfire risk and the growing impacts of a hotter, drier climate.
In a summer like this, the work doesn’t change—but the urgency does. Many of the solutions are already in motion, shaped by years of collaboration across the basin.
Across the Western U.S., TNC staff and partners are stepping up efforts to protect our forests, conserve water and help balance water needs for the communities, businesses and wildlife that need it most.
“I think what gives me hope is that we already have the technical solutions,” says Nancy Smith, conservation director for TNC’s Colorado River program. “Now it's really about doing what people already know how to do well, which is sit down, listen to each other, figure out how these technical solutions can be applied in specific ways and specific places that work for individual communities.”
Throughout the Colorado River Basin, these solutions are already being put into practice, as communities take action to protect and restore the natural systems that help water go further. Examples like these provide a path forward in a hotter, drier future.
Restoring Forests to Protect Water
In the Western U.S., healthy forests are critical to our water supply. Along Colorado’s Front Range, forests that were once open and airy have grown dense following decades of fire suppression, leaving communities, water supplies and wildlife at greater risk from severe wildfire. TNC is working with partners to restore these fire-adapted landscapes by thinning trees and returning beneficial fire, helping forests regain their natural structure and resilience in a changing climate.
Learn more about our Western Dry Forest Program
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This work is scaled up by the Northern Colorado Fireshed Collaborative, where TNC has joined agencies, researchers, communities and other nonprofits to coordinate across boundaries to reduce wildfire risk and protect watersheds. While this landscape sits outside the Colorado River Basin, restoring forest health here plays a critical role in safeguarding local water supplies and reducing the need to divert water from the Colorado River.
“Water is an anchor that helps us prioritize where we work,” says Rob Addington, director of forest and fire programs for TNC Colorado. “Reservoirs and river systems on the Front Range are critical, and we’ve seen how high severity wildfire can threaten them. After a fire, soil erosion can send ash, debris and sediment into our water. And so we’re trying to change that outcome through forest management.”
Dry years like this one add urgency, increasing pressure to restore more acres, faster. At the same time, warmer conditions can narrow the window for safely using prescribed fire, requiring crews to be more flexible in how and where they work.
Addington says teams are planning with future conditions in mind and adapting their approach—for example, shifting work to higher elevations where conditions may be cooler, wetter and safer for prescribed fire.
“A year like this really highlights the importance of doubling down on this work,” he says. “We have to be ready to take advantage of restoration opportunities when they come, and we have to be smart about how to apply the climate adaptation science.”
Slowing Water to Make it Last
Another approach to preparing for a dry season is stream restoration. In the West, many streams and rivers have been straightened and simplified. Water running through them doesn’t have time to soak in and instead moves quickly downstream, where it’s more likely to evaporate.
Slowing down a stream captures more water near the headwaters, in what’s often referred to as a “second snowpack,” or water stored in soil and floodplains. This conserves more water for the dry season and supports grass for grazing and habitat for wildlife along the way.
“I like to think of it as getting more work out of every drop,” says Austin Rempel, riparian restoration program manager.
Rempel co-leads TNC’s multi-state stream restoration effort, where a group of project managers works in partnership with landowners and the Bureau of Land Management to collaborate on funding opportunities, share lessons learned and get more stream restoration projects on the ground.
Their mission is to restore streams using simple, easy-to-replicate techniques, building basic structures from rocks and sticks that create pools and slow water down. Essentially, they’re mimicking beaver, and their small dams that spread water across the floodplain. It’s hands-on work that creates restoration jobs while cutting back on heavy equipment that can be difficult or costly to bring in.
This kind of restoration is happening across the West, with more opportunities in the works. Rempel points to a project at West Coyote Creek, near Moab, Utah, in what he describes as “classic red rock country.” Restoration has allowed a groundwater-fed spring to spread out more naturally; vegetation is coming back and local ranchers who graze in the area have positive feedback.
“Even in a system that we’d expect to be a little muted, we’re seeing these early signs of success. It feels like if it’s possible there, it’s possible anywhere.”
Putting Restoration into Practice
Rempel has seen these changes not just on project sites, but at home.
He put these techniques to work on his family’s ranch in Southwest Colorado, near the New Mexico border. In recent years, their hand-dug well dating to the 1800s began going dry. Rempel began adding simple structures in the nearby river, and soon, beaver and trout returned. Still, he cautions that due to diversions, they’re expecting the river to run dry this summer.
“We all view this year as a picture of what’s to come more often,” he says. “It’s kind of steeled people.”
For Rempel, that urgency is both practical and personal.
“The reason I’m doing this is because almost anyone can do it,” he says. “There are hundreds of miles of small streams we overlook. These are backyard streams.”
If enough of these streams are restored, the impact adds up.
“If we're able to slow the water to re-wet the entire system, we can have our wetlands and floodplains, regardless of snowpack or precipitation. And that's really what we're aiming for.”
Protecting Water in Arizona's Sky Islands
Similar restoration techniques can be applied throughout the Colorado River Basin by tailoring them to the needs of each landscape. In Arizona, the Pinaleño Sacred Springs restoration project is helping restore watershed health in a landscape considered sacred by 12 Tribes of the region.
Mount Graham is southeast Arizona’s highest peak and part of the Pinaleño Mountains "sky island"—an isolated mountain range that rises above the surrounding desert. Its cooler, wetter conditions provide refuge for plants and wildlife, including 18 species found nowhere else on Earth. The range of elevations found here creates an important corridor for wildlife adapting to a changing climate. A 2017 wildfire devastated the area, threatening its water resources and the species that depend on them.
TNC supported restoration efforts led by Taproot Collaborative, with partners including the U.S. Forest Service, University of Arizona, Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps and Arizona Conservation Corps. Members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe serve as project advisors, helping guide restoration in a place of deep cultural significance.
The project is also testing whether native fungi can improve the success of restoration plantings. When an area has been heavily disturbed by fire or other impacts, reestablishing healthy vegetation can be challenging.
"When you replant in an area that has been highly disturbed, you don't always get a high success rate with those plants," says Kimberly Schonek, water program director for TNC Arizona. "The idea is to introduce local fungi that would naturally be part of the soil biome. Because it's not just what we see on top of the ground that makes this ecosystem function, it's also what's happening under the dirt."
For Schonek, protecting springs and keeping water on the landscape is especially important in Arizona's dry climate.
"Anything we can do that keeps water on the landscape can reduce fire risk. When we're looking at a small spring, that's really important because it's critical water that creates this connection across an arid region."
Where freshwater is limited, protecting these sources of water can help sustain habitat and build resilience across the landscape, especially in dry years like this one.
Scaling Up for Bigger Results
Across the Colorado River Basin, the need is clear: do more and do it faster. Climate change is reshaping our precipitation in real time, and restoration efforts must keep pace with more extreme and unpredictable conditions.
To meet that challenge, TNC’s Colorado River program is exploring new ways to fund and deliver work at scale. For example, the team is looking to innovative funding models from across the organization—like project finance for permanence, water funds and watershed investment funds—that bring together public and private partners to invest in long-term resilience and flexible water management solutions.
Can Forests Hold More Snow?
Arizona researchers are studying how forest thinning and prescribed fire affect snowpack. Early findings could help land managers improve water retention while reducing wildfire risk. Learn more.
“We’re trying to bring that global know-how home to the Colorado River,” says Smith.
Putting those ideas into practice means working with partners across the basin. TNC helps connect Tribal Nations, agricultural producers, businesses, state and federal agencies and local communities to advance solutions that can last over the long term.
“The size of the challenge in the Colorado River Basin goes beyond TNC,” she says. “But what we're really good at is bringing people together. If you can get everyone working together, that's where we can make a difference at a scale that matters.”
The Colorado River Needs Us All
Every river mile protected begins with you. Discover how you can support TNC's Colorado River Program.
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