River's End: Drought-Related Influences on Stream Drying in the Western United States

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Streams of the western United States are disappearing before our eyes as we are currently in the grip of a regional drought. Long-term records of stream flows in the west also show that we are in the midst of a longer-term problem: climate change. Recent studies have linked changing climates to lower low flows that last longer than we’ve ever seen before. All of this translates into increasing scarcity of our most precious resource: water. Water sustains a host of species and natural ecosystems, as well as human needs ranging from farming and drinking water to recreation. To better understand where our water is and how availability is changing across the western landscape, we will develop new methods for identifying when and where streams go dry. This involves applying new methods to extract information on drying of streams from existing records intended to just record water temperature. By translating these temperature data into patterns of stream drying, we will gain important new information on water availability. Results of this work will unquestionably prove valuable for a multitude of management decisions that depend on anticipating future patterns of drought as the influences of climate change are realized across the western United States.

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