Vol. 128, No. 42 Tuesday, October 9, 2018
OPINION
SPORTS
ARTS & CULTURE
Don’t let intimidation keep you from the gym
Soccer rides defense to undefeated weekend
The life and legacy of Dr. Jack Fenwick
page 6
page 10
page 12
ILLUSTRATION BY MEG METZGER-SEYMOUR COLLEGIAN
Researchers share $4.9 million for water allocation study By Julia Trowbridge @chapin_jules
With the “Arid West” experiencing climate change and a growing population, it’s time to look at water rights. Colorado State University professors are joining up with researchers across universities and disciplines in Colorado, Nevada and Arizona to do just that. In partnership with the Uni-
versity of Nevada Reno, Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University and the Desert Research Institute, CSU researchers received a $4.9 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture in order to create an economic model of how water rights should be allocated in the long term. This topic has come up due to changes in population growth and climate change, especially in sus-
taining and increasing agricultural productivity, according to the research proposal. The research centers around the concept of water rights. Water rights refer to a business’s rights to irrigate water. Dale Manning, an agricultural and resource economics professor at CSU, said the longer the business has had the water right, the more secure that business’s water supply claim is.
This is important because people with more secure rights get priority access to water resources. “What happens is, if you’re a senior water right and can’t get the water you’ve historically used, you can tell all the people who are more junior to you, who started diverting water after you, to stop diverting,” Manning said. The research project focuses on the water basins that the research-
ers are around: the South Platte river basin, the Verde River basin and the Walker river basin. Although the economic models are being designed around these basins, the research team wants these models to be tailored to any area that relies on surface water, Manning said. Agriculture diverts the most water in the west, and it diverts
see RESEARCH on page 5 >>
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