Hydrohistorian
Full diagnostic snapshot pending — this district's weekly-style report (system status, active calls, hydrographs, anomaly flags) is produced by the nightly rotation and appears here after its first run. The tabs above are live now.
Evolution of the network
Gage flow trend & changepoints
What counts as a trend here
Computed 2026-08-20 09:36 from 8 gage(s) with cached period-of-record data. Mann-Kendall (trend) and Pettitt (changepoint) both require at least 8 years spanning at least 10 years of record. A gage below that reports no signal — which is not the same as “no change.”
Of the 8 gages with enough record, 1 is trending down and 0 up, and 1 carries a detected shift. The clearest is PINE RIVER BELOW VALLECITO RESERVOIR NEAR BAYFIELD, -22.7 points of its long-term median per decade over 41 years (p=0.0089). The other 7 show no clear signal either way.
| Gage | Trend | Change / decade points of median | Significance | Years | Changepoint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
▸
PINE RIVER BELOW VALLECITO RESERVOIR NEAR BAYFIELD PINBVACO |
↓ decreasing | -22.7 | p=0.009 | 41 | ~2008 |
7 other gage(s) show no significant trend or changepoint (not shown).
How the measurement network itself changed
This basin was not always measured the way it is today — the API-era record is dense and recent, the early record sparse. 6 gage(s) and 36 structure(s) report in 2026, but structure reporting only reached half its modern level around ~1967. 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) |
|---|---|---|
| 1920s | 1 | 0 |
| 1930s | 1 | 0 |
| 1940s | 1 | 0 |
| 1950s | 3 | 49 |
| 1960s | 4 | 24 |
| 1970s | 4 | 100 |
| 1980s | 4 | 115 |
| 1990s | 4 | 124 |
| 2000s | 5 | 120 |
| 2010s | 5 | 92 |
| 2020s | 6 | 32 |
Mass-balance (network closure) trend
Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 10% of 508 schematic-relevant structures. 0 year(s) clear the 30% coverage gate so far -- 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 (1951–2026)
Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to 1951 (746 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.
- LOS PINOS RIVER NEAR IGNACIO, CO: reach shifted from -544 cfs to -180 cfs summer mean (more gaining, p=0.020, 27 yr) [sedimentary plains/foothills: moderate groundwater connectivity -- gain/loss shifts can be real aquifer response; corroborate with nearby well records] [measurement-evolution caution: this shift co-moves with the growth of the gage/metering network (rho=-0.61) -- part of it may be unaccounted water becoming accounted, not hydrologic change]
- SPRING CREEK AT LA BOCA, CO: reach shifted from -587 cfs to -12 cfs summer mean (more gaining, p=0.046, 61 yr) [sedimentary plains/foothills: moderate groundwater connectivity -- gain/loss shifts can be real aquifer response; corroborate with nearby well records]
Groundwater now has its own tab: 120 monitored well(s), water-table trends, stream corridors, and the advisory depletion screen.
Reservoirs now has its own tab: 30 reservoir(s), end-of-year storage back to 1951, click-to-chart histories.
Cross-gage pattern fingerprint
Over the 27-year window with full coverage (2000–2026), the dominant shared pattern across 3 gage(s) explains 90% of year-to-year variance (almost certainly a basin-wide climate/snowpack driver).
All gages in this window move with the shared pattern -- no localized outlier.
Data provenance & quality
Where these numbers come from and how far they can be trusted. Grade C (3/6 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 | expected-lag | newest diversion record is 293 day(s) old (DWR publishes ~1 year in arrears) |
| structure coverage | sparse | 10% of schematic structures have data |
Independent check: PASS — 100.0000% agreement across 626,697 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 — 99.12% day-level agreement with USGS's own published records for the same gages, across 6 co-listed station(s) and 107,336 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) / 126,408 daily values (1927-10-01–2026-07-06); 204 structure(s) with diversion records; 1037 with decreed rights. Methodology has not yet had independent expert review — treat every figure as an advisory screen, not an administrative or legal conclusion.
179 water-level measurements across 120 monitored well(s) — 86 alluvial, 0 bedrock — plus 4 administered well(s) reporting metered pumping.
What is being counted
Observation wells and pumping wells are different populations and are never conflated: water levels come from monitored observation wells, and metered pumping comes from administered wells reporting through diversion records. Click any well to chart its own record.
Well map
3D aquifer x-ray
Every aquifer unit as its own head surface, animated through time.
How the surfaces are built, and what they are not
Alluvial water table on top, Denver Basin members (Dawson, Denver, Arapahoe, Laramie–Fox Hills) stacked beneath where measured, interpolated from measured water levels. Units are never mixed; a surface exists only inside its own unit's well coverage, with no extrapolation; thin epochs are suppressed and say why. Vertical scale is exaggerated for readability and z is head elevation in feet. These are measured heads, not a calibrated groundwater model.
Water-table trends
Of 1 well(s) with enough record for a trend test: 0 declining, 0 rising.
Stream corridors — the surface connection
Where a reach's gain or loss has shifted, the wells within two miles of its anchoring gage and what their water table did over the same era.
How the corridor is assembled
For each reach whose gain/loss has shifted (Trends tab): the wells within 2 miles of its anchoring gage, their pooled water-table history over the same era, and an advisory Glover screen of lagged stream depletion from nearby metered pumping. v1 proximity = distance to the reach's anchoring gage; segment-based reach join is a flagged upgrade.
LOS PINOS RIVER NEAR IGNACIO, CO: 23 alluvial well(s) nearby. Glover screen: 0.1 cfs of nearby metered alluvial pumping → est. lagged depletion 0.0–0.1 cfs (uncalibrated T/S ranges; flagged for SPDSS calibration, AWAS cross-check, and expert review — DWR's AWAS is the authority).
SPRING CREEK AT LA BOCA, CO: 1 alluvial well(s) nearby
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.
30 reservoir(s) with 2,048 storage measurement(s), 1951–2012. Basin storage as of 2011-10-19 (the record's own end — reservoir records publish ~annually): 58,940 AF across 2 reservoir(s).
Why storage matters to the flow network
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?
What “full” is measured against
Bubble size is proportional to a reservoir's record-high storage. Fill is its 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 as a share of its own record high otherwise. A wrong capacity would be worse than an honest record high, so only confident joins upgrade.
A dashed teal ring marks reservoirs reporting live DWR telemetry: their fill reflects yesterday's storage, is drawn as a dotted tail on charts, and is treated as provisional until the next verified HydroBase snapshot supersedes it.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| ▸ VALLECITO RESERVOIR (3103518) | 58,751 | 2010-10-31 |
| ▸ VALLECITO RESERVOIR (3103529) | 350 | 1980-08-07 |
| ▸ EMERALD LAKE RESERVOIR (3103516) | 220 | 1951-09-01 |
| ▸ WOMMER RESERVOIR NO 1 (3103517) | 189 | 2011-10-19 |
| ▸ VALLECITO RESERVOIR (3103532) | 90 | 1980-07-10 |
| ▸ BELLFLOWER RETENTION RES (3103520) | 60 | 1990-10-31 |
| ▸ GOSNEY GRAVEL PIT NO. 1 (3103805) | 47 | 2003-10-31 |
| ▸ VALLECITO RESERVOIR (3103531) | 37 | 1980-08-07 |
Decreed rights on this network run from 1868-03-02 to 2025-10-01. 25 abandonment screens and 102 compliance flags are listed below as leads for review — a screen is not an abandonment and a flag is not a violation.
Rights on file: 1122 across 1037 structure(s); 44 structure(s) carry 1 court-case references. Advisory reading aids on public DWR data — not administrative or legal conclusions.
Abandonment radar (25 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 ~1967 — idleness that begins before then may be unreported use, not nonuse (flagged † below).
- EMERALD LAKE RESERVOIR (3103516) (1976-05-12, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1951 — 74 years idle † predates modern reporting era — last recorded activity predates this basin's modern reporting era (~1967) -- early absence of record is weak evidence of nonuse
- LEIGH PIPELINE (3100738) (1973-06-01, 0.1 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 56 years idle
- COUCH D NO 1 & PUMP PLT (3100602) (1969-03-01, 1.0 cfs decreed): last active 1972 — 53 years idle
- GEORGE B JONES DITCH (3100565) (1911-05-01, 2.5 cfs decreed): last active 1973 — 52 years idle
- COUCH D NO 2 & PUMP PLT (3100603) (1969-03-01, 1.0 cfs decreed): last active 1973 — 52 years idle
- MONTGOMERY DITCH (3100610) (1920-04-23, 4.0 cfs decreed): last active 1973 — 52 years idle
- LOWER WOMMER DITCH NO 1 (3100623) (1900-07-31, 3.0 cfs decreed): last active 1973 — 52 years idle
- LOWER WOMMER DITCH NO 2 (3100624) (1900-07-31, 2.0 cfs decreed): last active 1973 — 52 years idle
- CALMETT NO 1 PUMP AND PL (3100631) (1952-12-31, 0.7 cfs decreed): last active 1973 — 52 years idle
- CURRIE-JACK CREEK PL (3100643) (1965-07-06, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1973 — 52 years idle
Compliance screens (102 advisory flags)
Screened 139 of 1037 structures with rights (151 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.
- VALLECITO HYDROELECTRIC (3100844): Observed p99 daily rate 725.0 cfs (max 850.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 720.0 cfs across 40124 recorded day(s).
- KING DITCH (3100519): Observed p99 daily rate 116.0 cfs (max 758.6) exceeds total decreed absolute 106.2 cfs across 47452 recorded day(s).
- SCHRODER IRRIGATION DITCH (3100523): Observed p99 daily rate 64.9 cfs (max 82.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 63.5 cfs across 44216 recorded day(s).
- ROBT MORRISON D HEAIR EX (3100645): Observed p99 daily rate 54.0 cfs (max 56.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 2.5 cfs across 7116 recorded day(s).
- THOMPSON-EPPERSON DITCH (3100511): Observed p99 daily rate 45.0 cfs (max 66.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 35.4 cfs across 41129 recorded day(s).
- BEAR CREEK AND PINE RIVER DITCH (3100514): Observed p99 daily rate 22.6 cfs (max 110.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 14.0 cfs across 47111 recorded day(s).
- CEANABOO DITCH (3100502): Observed p99 daily rate 19.5 cfs (max 26.7) exceeds total decreed absolute 9.8 cfs across 34987 recorded day(s).
- LOS PINOS IRRIGATING DITCH (3100512): Observed p99 daily rate 19.0 cfs (max 35.8) exceeds total decreed absolute 11.5 cfs across 73215 recorded day(s). Structure holds an Augmentation-use decree -- diversions above the direct-flow decree can be lawful under plan operations; interpret with care.
- LA BOCA DITCH (3100507): Observed p99 daily rate 18.0 cfs (max 31.7) exceeds total decreed absolute 14.3 cfs across 22127 recorded day(s).
- KIRKPATRICK DITCH (3100535): Observed p99 daily rate 16.5 cfs (max 22.6) exceeds total decreed absolute 6.5 cfs across 10832 recorded day(s).
Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)
| Structure | Senior priority date | Rights | Decreed abs (cfs) | Decreed abs (AF) | Conditional? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VALLECITO HYDROELECTRIC (3100844) | 1979-06-01 | 1 | 720.0 | 0 | — |
| SPRING CREEK DITCH (3101045) | 1868-07-25 | 9 | 321.2 | 0 | yes |
| ROBERT MORRISON DITCH (3100547) | 1890-10-01 | 6 | 108.5 | 0 | — |
| KING DITCH (3100519) | 1881-05-01 | 4 | 106.2 | 0 | — |
| VALLECITO CREEK INSTREAM FLOW WATER RIGH (3101901) | 2017-03-23 | 1 | 92.0 | 0 | — |
| DR MORRISON DITCH (3101044) | 1868-07-25 | 2 | 72.6 | 0 | yes |
| SCHRODER IRRIGATION DITCH (3100523) | 1881-09-01 | 4 | 63.5 | 0 | — |
| PORTER DITCH (3100583) | 1936-06-15 | 2 | 48.0 | 0 | — |
| WEMINUCHE PASS DITCH (3104637) | 1934-07-28 | 4 | 40.0 | 0 | — |
| THOMPSON-EPPERSON DITCH (3100511) | 1877-12-31 | 6 | 35.4 | 0 | — |
| LOS PINOS RIVER (3101900) | 1984-07-13 | 1 | 32.0 | 0 | — |
| PINE R WEMINUCHE PASS D (3104638) | 1934-10-11 | 3 | 18.0 | 0 | — |
| DRY CREEK DITCH (3100660) | 1900-12-31 | 1 | 15.4 | 0 | — |
| LA BOCA DITCH (3100507) | 1868-07-25 | 1 | 14.3 | 0 | yes |
| BEAR CREEK AND PINE RIVER DITCH (3100514) | 1878-05-01 | 1 | 14.0 | 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.
What this does and doesn't model. Seniority arithmetic only: every right junior to the call is treated as curtailed. It does not model reach applicability — structures downstream of the calling point are not administered by it — and it applies no futile-call judgment. Read it as “who is junior to this date, and by how much,” not as a prediction of what the Division Engineer would actually order.
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
DWR administration numbers encode appropriation and adjudication dates; lower is more senior.