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By pairing Colorado's water planning model, StateMod, with a new hidden Markov modeling framework, the study created hundreds of thousands of streamflow scenarios under both historical and climate-change conditions.

The results imply that drought vulnerability analyses relying only on the historical streamflow record may severely underestimate the magnitude of potential drought events and their impacts on water storage, agriculture and municipal water supply.

"Our work shows that even relatively middle-of-the-road climate change and streamflow declines in these basins flows can threaten to put the system at risk of breaching a tipping point where the basins are no longer able to maintain the levels of deliveries to Lake Powell that we're accustomed to over recent history," Reed said.

Stillwater’s study identified and assessed 12 barriers to streamflow in the area.

Recent advances in technology, he said, can also allow for the deployment of more real-time “smart” gauges that measure not only streamflow but also water quality, temperature and other measures of waterways’ health.