Berkeley Lab is leading the Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area (SFA) to understand how disturbances like floods, droughts, fires, and early snowmelt affect mountainous watersheds. The project, funded by the Department of Energy with over $20 million for three years, focuses on the East River watershed in Colorado’s Upper Colorado River Basin. This region is crucial, supplying water to over one in ten Americans and supporting extensive agriculture and hydroelectric power. (coyotegulch.blog)
The SFA employs a "system-of-systems" approach to model how fine-scale processes in different watershed subsystems contribute to the downstream export of water, nutrients, carbon, and metals. A key aspect is developing a scale-adaptive watershed simulation capability, enabling scientists to simulate microbially mediated and other fine-scale processes only when and where needed to accurately predict watershed behavior. (coyotegulch.blog)
The team comprises over 65 scientists from institutions including the University of California, Berkeley; Colorado School of Mines; Fort Lewis College; University of Arizona; Desert Research Institute; Navarro, Inc.; and Subsurface Insights. The project aims to develop modeling capabilities, observational tools, and deep insights into how mountainous watersheds respond to disturbances, addressing the need for predictive understanding of watershed dynamics over seasonal to decadal timescales. (coyotegulch.blog)
