Computed 2026-08-20 09:16 from 8 gage(s) with cached period-of-record data. Statistical tests (Mann-Kendall trend, Pettitt changepoint) require at least 8 years spanning at least 10 years of record -- gages below that report no signal, not "no change."

Data provenance & quality

Where these numbers come from and how far they can be trusted. Grade D (2/6 points) — the components below are the finding; the letter alone is not. Sources: DWR HydroBase snapshot HydroBase_CO_20260707 (imported 2026-08-19) for history, plus the CDSS REST API for current conditions.

Check	State	What was measured
gage freshness	stale	newest gage reading is 45 day(s) old (target 7)
diversion record	stale	newest diversion record is 658 day(s) old (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears)
structure coverage	sparse	30% of schematic structures have data

Independent check: PASS — 100.0000% agreement across 116,333 stored values re-checked against DWR's authoritative record (HydroBase_CO_20260707), over 20 structures. 0 disagreement(s) beyond a 0.01 cfs tolerance. Checked 2026-08-19; a rotating sample covers the whole basin across successive runs, and the structures this report cites are checked every time.

Federal cross-check: PASS — 99.75% day-level agreement with USGS's own published records for the same gages, across 7 co-listed station(s) and 110,031 overlapping days (within max(2%, 0.5 cfs) daily). Pre-1950 records at some gages carry known between-agency day-stamp and transcription differences — scored at each year's best ±1-day alignment; residual disagreement is real historical divergence, flagged for review.

8 gage(s) / 111,767 daily values (1899-10-01–2026-07-06); 635 structure(s) with diversion records; 1231 with decreed rights. Methodology has not yet had independent expert review — treat every figure as an advisory screen, not an administrative or legal conclusion.

Read this first: the measurement network itself evolved

This basin was not always measured the way it is today — the API-era record is dense and recent, the early record sparse. 2 gage(s) and 134 structure(s) report in 2026, but structure reporting only reached half its modern level around ~1975. Every historical claim below is checked against this: long-term shifts that co-move with the growth of the network carry an explicit measurement-evolution caution, and abandonment screens whose idleness begins before the modern reporting era are flagged †.

Decade	Gages with data (median yr)	Structures reporting (median yr)
1890s	1	0
1900s	2	0
1910s	2	0
1920s	1	0
1930s	1	0
1940s	2	0
1950s	3	0
1960s	4	0
1970s	4	114
1980s	4	265
1990s	4	252
2000s	2	224
2010s	2	206
2020s	2	112

Gage flow trend & changepoints

Every located gage with a period of record — dot size scales with the strength of its flow trend (|Sen slope| in %/decade, the same statistic as the table below), color with direction. An amber ring marks a detected Pettitt changepoint. Click a gage to chart its trend and shift.

Gage	Trend	Change / decade	Significance	Years	Changepoint
▸ COLORADO RIVER NEAR KREMMLING, CO☆ COLKRECO	↓ decreasing	-3.5%	p=0.003	78	~1962
▸ COLORADO RIVER AT GLENWOOD SPRINGS, CO.☆ COLAGSCO	no clear trend	-2.4%	p=0.057	67	~1930

6 other gage(s) show no significant trend or changepoint (not shown).

Mass-balance (network closure) trend

Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 30% of 210 schematic-relevant structures. 1 year(s) clear the 30% coverage gate so far (1985–1985) -- the trend activates automatically once qualifying years span a full decade. No action needed; the nightly backfill keeps extending the record.

Reach gain/loss shifts (–)

Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to (0 reach-snapshots) — which reaches gain or lose water, and how that has shifted across decades. Each shift is cross-checked against the observation record above: as more diversions became metered, "unaccounted" water shrinks mechanically, which can masquerade as a hydrologic shift.

No reach shows a statistically significant long-term gain/loss shift.

Groundwater now has its own tab: 14 monitored well(s), water-table trends, stream corridors, and the advisory depletion screen.

Reservoirs now has its own tab: 91 reservoir(s), end-of-year storage back to 1975, click-to-chart histories.

Cross-gage pattern fingerprint

Not enough gages with a long enough common-coverage window yet to fingerprint shared patterns.

The basin's aquifer story, from 52 water-level measurements across 14 monitored well(s) (10 alluvial, 0 bedrock, rest unclassified) — plus 9 administered well(s) reporting metered pumping through diversion records. Observation wells and pumping wells are different populations and are never conflated. Click a well to chart its record.

Well map

Every monitored well with a location — hover for identity, click to chart its water-level record below. ● alluvial   ● bedrock / confined (Denver Basin, High Plains, etc. — one-way, no human-timescale recharge)   ● unclassified — marker size scales with the strength of the well's water-level trend (|Sen slope| in ft/decade — the same Mann-Kendall/Sen statistic as the trends table below); the smallest, faintest dots have too little record to test.

3D aquifer x-ray

Every aquifer unit as its own 3D head surface — alluvial water table on top, Denver Basin members (Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe, Laramie–Fox Hills) stacked beneath where measured — interpolated from measured water levels and animated through time. Units are never mixed; surfaces exist only inside each unit's well coverage (no extrapolation); thin epochs are suppressed with their reason shown. Vertical scale exaggerated for readability; z is head elevation in feet. Advisory — measured heads, not a calibrated model.

Load 3D x-ray

Water-table trends

Of 0 well(s) with enough record for a trend test: 0 declining, 0 rising.

Wells labeled by administrative world before anything else is said about them: tributary alluvium participates in the priority system; designated-basin and Denver Basin bedrock aquifers are governed differently and are excluded from stream-connection reasoning. Read bedrock declines differently too: deep bedrock aquifers recharge negligibly on human timescales, so a falling bedrock level is storage mining — effectively permanent — not a drought response that a wet year undoes. All screens advisory.

91 reservoir(s) with 4,253 storage measurement(s), 1975–2025. Basin storage as of 2024-10-17 (the record's own end — reservoir records publish ~annually): 1,044 AF across 11 reservoir(s). Storage change is real water the mass balance must credit — a losing reach beside a filling reservoir isn't losing water, it's banking it.

Reservoir map — how full is each vessel?

Each reservoir drawn as a vessel: bubble size ∝ its record-high storage, fill level = last recorded storage as a share of its surveyed capacity (USACE National Inventory of Dams) where a confident NID match exists — the tooltip names the matched dam — and of its own record high otherwise (a wrong capacity would be worse than an honest record high, so only confident joins upgrade). Hover for numbers, click to chart its history below the map. A dashed teal ring marks reservoirs reporting live DWR telemetry — their fill reflects yesterday's storage, drawn as a dotted tail on charts and treated as provisional until the next verified HydroBase snapshot supersedes it. ● <25% ● 25–60% ● 60–90% ● >90%

Basin storage, end of each water year

End-of-water-year totals; per-year reservoir counts shown because reporting coverage varies -- a total is only comparable to years with similar counts.

Largest reservoirs on record

Click a reservoir to chart its full storage history.

Reservoir	Last recorded storage (AF)	As of
▸ STERNER RESERVOIR (5303995) ☆	532	2023-05-17
▸ SWEETWATER RESERVOIR (5303997) ☆	490	2006-10-31
▸ JONES NO 2 RESERVOIR (5303975) ☆	400	2024-10-17
▸ REID NO 1 RESERVOIR (5303991) ☆	130	2013-10-31
▸ KELLY RESERVOIR (5303978) ☆	122	2013-10-31
▸ ED W HARPER RESERVOIR (5303961) ☆	107	2023-10-31
▸ NEWTON GULCH RESERVOIR (5303988) ☆	102	2024-06-05
▸ HEART LAKE RESERVOIR (5303971) ☆	100	2024-07-08

Decrees, seniority, and administrative calls connected to this basin's flow network. Advisory reading aids on public DWR data — not administrative or legal conclusions. Rights on file: 1596 across 1231 structure(s); 63 structure(s) carry 0 court-case references.

Abandonment radar (4 screens)

Absolute rights with 10+ years of no recorded diversions. Screens only — storage, alternate points, and plan operations can explain nonuse lawfully. And diversion REPORTING itself only reached its modern level ~1975 — idleness that begins before then may be unreported use, not nonuse (flagged † below).

• PARK DITCH (5300751)☆ (1911-08-01, 0.4 cfs decreed): last active 1976 — 11 years idle
• HADLEY NO 2 RESERVOIR (5303969)☆ (1931-06-01, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1976 — 11 years idle
• REID NO 3 RESERVOIR (5303992)☆ (1903-09-12, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1976 — 11 years idle
• ROBERTA RESERVOIR (5303993)☆ (1904-06-14, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1976 — 11 years idle

Compliance screens (299 advisory flags)

Screened 503 of 1231 structures with rights (548 have diversion history on file). A flag is a lead for expert review — augmentation plans, exchanges, and free-river conditions can make over-decree diversions lawful and are deliberately not modeled.

• SHOSHONE POWER PLANT (5300584)☆: Observed p99 daily rate 1415.0 cfs (max 13272.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 1408.0 cfs across 35124 recorded day(s).
• WILSON AND DOLL DITCH (5300883)☆: Observed p99 daily rate 60.0 cfs (max 61.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 11.7 cfs across 15647 recorded day(s).
• CABIN CREEK DITCH (5300521)☆: Observed p99 daily rate 30.0 cfs (max 30.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 2.5 cfs across 8237 recorded day(s).
• H M S RELOCATED DITCH (5300767)☆: Observed p99 daily rate 23.0 cfs (max 24.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 20.3 cfs across 11952 recorded day(s).
• GRAND RIVER L AND C CO D (5300591)☆: Observed p99 daily rate 21.0 cfs (max 45.6) exceeds total decreed absolute 18.4 cfs across 10072 recorded day(s).
• OAK GROVE DITCH (5300745)☆: Observed p99 daily rate 18.0 cfs (max 20.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 10.2 cfs across 8908 recorded day(s).
• LUARK DITCH (5300683)☆: Observed p99 daily rate 17.0 cfs (max 17.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 10.7 cfs across 9844 recorded day(s).
• STEWART IRRIGATING DITCH (5300810)☆: Observed p99 daily rate 16.9 cfs (max 16.9) exceeds total decreed absolute 11.1 cfs across 8229 recorded day(s). Structure holds an Augmentation-use decree -- diversions above the direct-flow decree can be lawful under plan operations; interpret with care.
• GLENWOOD L WTR CO SYS/NO NAME (5300585)☆: Observed p99 daily rate 16.1 cfs (max 1189.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 12.0 cfs across 38602 recorded day(s).
• KREMMLING SHEEP CREEK DITCH HGT 1 (5300670)☆: Observed p99 daily rate 16.0 cfs (max 22.4) exceeds total decreed absolute 6.5 cfs across 8918 recorded day(s).

Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)

Structure	Senior priority date	Rights	Decreed abs (cfs)	Decreed abs (AF)	Conditional?
SHOSHONE POWER PLANT (5300584)☆	1902-01-07	2	1408.0	0	—
5302033☆	2011-07-12	1	900.0	0	—
MIN FLOW COLORADO RIVER PINEY - CABIN (5302032)☆	2011-07-12	1	800.0	0	—
MIN FLOW COLORADO RIVER BLUE - PINEY (5302031)☆	2011-07-12	1	750.0	0	—
MIDDLE DERBY DITCH (5300704)☆	1890-07-25	3	40.0	0	—
GRIMES BROOKS R INTAKE D (5300595)☆	1952-08-27	2	36.7	0	—
D D DITCH (5300547)☆	1916-07-14	1	32.0	0	—
SOUTH DERBY DITCH (5300800)☆	1893-08-10	2	32.0	0	—
LION BASIN DITCH (5300678)☆	1893-08-10	2	31.8	0	—
DERBY DITCH (5300555)☆	1884-08-28	2	28.0	0	—
KAYSER DITCH (5300657)☆	1902-11-22	1	25.0	0	—
GRIMES BROOKS FDR2 D HG2 (5300594)☆	1954-08-09	2	23.3	0	—
ROGERS DITCH (5300780)☆	1909-09-15	3	21.4	0	—
WEST END NO 1 DITCH (5300870)☆	1874-09-20	1	21.0	0	—
OXBOW FISH CHANNEL (5300920)☆	2002-07-24	2	21.0	0	—

No inventory or legal-document changes detected since the daily watch began.

If a call were placed at a given seniority, which structures in this basin would be out of priority, and how much of their decreed rate would be curtailed? Computed from this basin's cached decrees.

Pick a calling right

Real decrees from this basin, ordered by administration number — that is, by actual seniority. The years will look out of order, and that is correct: an administration number encodes the adjudication date as well as the appropriation date, so a right appropriated in 1970 can be administered ahead of one from 1950. A senior call curtails almost everything; a junior one curtails almost nothing.

Or enter an administration number directly

Administration number
Simulate

DWR administration numbers encode appropriation and adjudication dates; lower is more senior.