ASU, SRP partnership measures snowpack to predict supply
In an effort to improve water management throughout the Valley, ASU and SRP have partnered up to use planes with new technology to measure the amount of water coming into the Phoenix reservoirs. FOX 10’s Taylor Wirtz learns more how they’re predicting to handle water, before it even gets here.
PHOENIX – A new partnership between Arizona State University and the Salt River Project is using new technology to gather data for improving water management in the Valley.
What we know:
The amount of snow in the mountains changes from year to year, and experts say being able to measure it ahead of time will be crucial in deciding how to manage the runoff water when it gets here. Groundbreaking technology developed in NASA labs will soon help.
“Things are changing. And we’re beginning in a warmer world, changing climate,” said SRP climate scientist and senior meteorologist Bo Svoma. “And western U.S. water supplies are more and more strained. You’re probably aware of the Colorado River issues. Even small improvements in forecasting can give us a lot of flexibility in how to manage water.”
A partnership between ASU and SRP is using planes with innovative technology to measure how much water is in certain areas of snowpack, focusing on the basin areas upstream of the Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River, in the Upper Black River Basin area near New Mexico.
Local perspective:
ASU researchers will analyze the results from each flight.
“Students at ASU and researchers there— they’re going to take the outputs of the snow mapping that the aircraft is doing, to improve the predictions of the amount of water coming into the reservoir,” said Professor Enrique Vivoni of the ASU School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. “So that we know ahead of time, weeks ahead, what’s the water supply in the Valley we have for use later on this year.”
Why you should care:
That water supply is a critical provider to the Valley.
“SRP provides 260 billion gallons of water per year to the Phoenix metropolitan area. So we’re a huge water provider,” Svoma said.
Experts say being able to accurately predict exactly how much water the Valley will be getting, before it even gets here, is critical in deciding how it’s managed.
“Our reservoir systems are a lifeline for many of the industries and municipal water uses here, including agriculture,” Vivoni said. “We use water. This water’s coming from snow, and the snowpack on some years is abundant. Some years it’s less abundant. So we’re trying to map how that snow accumulates to know how much water we’ll have for the spring and summer season this year.”
What’s next:
There will be three flights as part of this project, the first of which takes off on Jan. 21.
The Source: This information was provided by a professor at the ASU School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment and a SRP climate scientist and senior meteorologist.
