Water Availability

More than 70 percent of the municipal water supply in the south Denver metropolitan area is provided by groundwater, and homeowners in rural areas depend solely on self-supplied groundwater for water supply. Increased groundwater withdrawal to meet the demand of the rapidly growing population is causing water levels to decline. The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Rural Water...

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the Colorado Department of Transportation, created a Web-based geodatabase for information on floods from 1867 through water year 2015 and information on paleofloods occurring in the past 5,000 to 10,000 years. The geodatabase was created using Environmental Systems Research Institute ArcGIS JavaScript Application Programing Interface. Engineers...

Fountain Creek is a high-gradient stream on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. The headwaters of Fountain Creek drain Pikes Peak, a major destination for tourism. Fountain Creek is a drinking-water source for the City of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and is used for irrigation, recreation, and other purposes between Colorado Springs and the confluence with the Arkansas River at...

Snow is an essential resource in the western United States (U.S.), providing water for drinking, irrigation, industry, energy production, and ecosystems across much of the region. In the mountains of the western U.S., most precipitation falls as snow, which accumulates in seasonal snowpacks that serve as a large natural reservoir. Snowpack sublimation, which is analogous to evaporation from land...

The Denver Basin aquifer system is a critical water resource for growing municipal, industrial, and domestic uses along the semiarid Front Range urban corridor of Colorado. The confined bedrock aquifer system is located along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountain Front Range where the mountains meet the Great Plains physiographic province. Mining, transportation, agricultural, and urban...

Baseflow will be determined for selected reaches in the South Platte River by using a mass-balance approach and possibly by modifying conventional baseflow analysis techniques.

The South Platte River valley between the City of Brighton in Adams County and the town of Fort Lupton in Weld County, Colorado, contains many wetland areas that provide habitat for wildlife in the Front Range Urban Corridor. The extent of aggregate mining along this reach of the South Platte River valley continues to increase as the demand for aggregate grows in response to urban development. The...

Since the late 1800's, Colorado has experienced several periods of drought that have varied from about 2 to 12 years in duration. The Statewide drought from 1999 extended into 2002, a year characterized by lower than normal precipitation, snowpack accumulation, and streamflow. Statewide, mountain snowpack was about 53 percent of normal on April 1, 2002, the lowest since 1977 Accumulated...

In the mid-1990s, the Colorado Division of Water Resources (CDWR) adopted rules governing measurement of tributary groundwater pumpage for the Arkansas River Basin. The rules allowed groundwater pumpage to be determined using one of two approaches—power conversion coefficient (PCC) or totalizing flowmeters (TFM). In addition, the rules allowed a PCC to be applied to the electrical power usage up...

Population growth near Buena Vista and Salida in Chaffee County has caused concern for the long-term availability and quality of groundwater . Groundwater withdrawals from deep wells that are completed in the basin-fill deposits and designed to supply multiple-dwelling developments could cause drawdowns in water levels of the overlying aquifers. Continued development of groundwater supplies in...

Water quantity, water-quality, and growth issues are of concern to Jefferson County, Colorado, officials who must balance the needs of current (2002) residents and requests for future development with protection and allocation of available water resources. The current status of groundwater resources in the mountainous parts of Jefferson County must be determined as a basis for developing a...