In bringing life to 25 million people and more than 2 million acres of farmland in 7 states and 2 countries, it has reached its dammed and diverted limit.
In this Investigation I am going to examine why the Colorado river is used so extensively. What factors have created the great need for this use and how this use has affected it. The situation of the Cucapa is an example but what other affects have there been?.
.
The Colorado River Area.
The fact that the Colorado has been so extensively used over the years shows that there must be some major factors requiring water management. One of these is the climate of the area.
The Landscape and Climate:.
The Upper Colorado runs mainly through Colorado and Utah, the area of the Rocky Mountains. It begins to the North West of Denver as runoff from Longs Peak and the surrounding mountains. Colorado is a warm state with an average rainfall between 500 -1000mm. Much more precipitation falls on the Rockies as snow however. This takes the annual precipitation up to a very high 2500mm and the snowmelt coming from this in the spring contributes heavily to the Colorado's volume.
From here the Colorado runs South West into Utah. Utah is a dry state with an average annual rainfall less than 250mm and a high average temperature for eht year. It is affected by the rainshadow effect created by the Sierra Nevada mountain range. This is caused by the rainclouds coming off the sea and onto the land, being forced up to try and cross the mountain range but as they rise they lose their moisture as rain and so no moisture reaches the other side. This affects most of the states between the coast an the Rocky mountains including Arizona and Nevada and this creates the dry hot climate of the area.In Utah the Colorado first negins to see the desert landscape that will become much more prevalent further South. As the Colorado crosses into Arizona it enters the magnificent Grand Canyon, a Gorge carved out over the millenia by the Colorado itself.