Applying a market-based approach to Colorado River management could ensure more robust and reliable supplies for farmers, communities and the environment, a new study has found.
Without considerable cutbacks in basin-wide water consumption, fish populations could face dire consequences for at least one month of the irrigation season, scientists warned in the study, published Friday in Nature Sustainability.
But if action were taken to deploy strategic water transactions among the basin’s stakeholders, resultant reductions in usage could improve the situation of more than 380 miles of restorable segments, per the research.
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