Colorado River Basin

Subject – Geography

Context – US government has declared water shortage for the Colorado River Basin for the first time.

Concept –

The Colorado River flows from the Rocky Mountains into the southwestern US and into Mexico.
The river is fed by snowmelt from the Rocky and Wasatch mountains and flows a distance of over 2,250 km (river Ganga flows through a distance of roughly 2,500 km) across seven states and into Mexico.
The Colorado River Basin is divided into the Upper (Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and northern Arizona) and Lower Basins (parts of Nevada, Arizona, California, southwestern Utah and western New Mexico).
In the Lower Basin, the Hoover Dam controls floods and regulates water delivery and storage.
Apart from the Hoover dam, there is the Davis Dam, Parker Dam and the Imperial Dam that regulate the release of water from the Hoover Dam.
The river drains a vast arid and semiarid sector of the North American continent, and because of its intensive development it is often referred to as the “Lifeline of the Southwest.”
Major lakes in its basin
- Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of volume and was formed in the 1930s by the Hoover Dam in Southern Nevada.
- Its main source of water is obtained from the Rocky Mountain snowmelt and runoff.
- The other is Lake Powell, the reservoir created by the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona.
Reason for shortage – Since the year 2000, this river basin has been experiencing a prolonged drought.