Utah Colorado River Accounting and Forecasting – Decision Support Tool (UCRAF-DST) Expansion
Follum Hydrologic Solutions (FHS), as a subcontractor to Precision Water Resources Engineering (PWRE), is expanding the Utah Colorado River Accounting and Forecasting – Decision Support Tool (UCRAF-DST) to additional watersheds in the Upper Colorado River Basin in Utah. Building on ongoing work in the Duchesne, Price, and San Rafael River Basins, the project extends UCRAF-DST to the Ashley Creek and Brush Creek watersheds while also expanding the Diversion Runoff Calculator (DRC) across the remainder of the Colorado River Basin in Utah. The tool evaluates how changes in water rights, irrigation practices, and infrastructure decisions made today influence future water budgets and water rights under a wide range of hydrologic conditions.
The project integrates water rights data, geospatial datasets, reconstructed streamflow, and field- and canal-scale diversion and return-flow estimates into a unified modeling framework. FHS develops and maintains DRC models, processes updated irrigation network data, and supplies hydrologic datasets to support system-level RiverWare® modeling of the Green and Colorado River mainstem. Together, these components provide Utah water managers with a transparent, defensible decision-support system that improves planning confidence, supports drought mitigation strategies, and informs long-term water management across the Colorado River Basin.