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 09:40 from 14 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 14 gages with enough record, 3 are trending down and 0 up, and 3 carry a detected shift. The clearest is DOLORES RIVER BELOW MCPHEE RESERVOIR, -64.0 points of its long-term median per decade over 41 years (p=0.0011). The other 10 show no clear signal either way.
| Gage | Trend | Change / decade points of median | Significance | Years | Changepoint |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
▸
LOST CANYON CREEK NEAR DOLORES, CO. LOSDOLCO |
↓ decreasing | -81.4 | p=0.002 | 42 | ~1999 |
|
▸
DOLORES RIVER BELOW MCPHEE RESERVOIR DOLBMCCO |
↓ decreasing | -64.0 | p=0.001 | 41 | ~2000 |
|
▸
DOLORES RIVER NEAR SLICK ROCK, CO DOLSLICO |
↓ decreasing | -61.4 | p=0.050 | 21 | — |
|
▸
DOLORES RIVER BELOW RICO, CO. DOLRICCO |
no clear trend | -4.8 | p=0.111 | 75 | ~2017 |
10 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 58 structure(s) report in 2026, but structure reporting only reached half its modern level around ~1950. 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 | 1 | 0 |
| 1910s | 1 | 0 |
| 1920s | 1 | 0 |
| 1930s | 1 | 0 |
| 1940s | 3 | 0 |
| 1950s | 2 | 40 |
| 1960s | 2 | 40 |
| 1970s | 2 | 46 |
| 1980s | 4 | 56 |
| 1990s | 4 | 57 |
| 2000s | 5 | 57 |
| 2010s | 8 | 55 |
| 2020s | 8 | 58 |
Mass-balance (network closure) trend
Structure divrec-history backfill coverage as of the last check: 15% of 277 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 (1950–2026)
Mass-balance kinks computed for every summer month back to 1950 (706 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.
- DOLORES RIVER BELOW MCPHEE RESERVOIR: reach shifted from +191 cfs to +134 cfs summer mean (more losing, p=0.019, 42 yr) [alluvial valley: real alluvial aquifer -- a decades-long shift toward losing is the classic signature of alluvial pumping and urbanization]
Groundwater now has its own tab: 7 monitored well(s), water-table trends, stream corridors, and the advisory depletion screen.
Reservoirs now has its own tab: 10 reservoir(s), end-of-year storage back to 1950, click-to-chart histories.
Cross-gage pattern fingerprint
Over the 42-year window with full coverage (1985–2026), the dominant shared pattern across 3 gage(s) explains 52% 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 | 15% of schematic structures have data |
Independent check: PASS — 100.0000% agreement across 127,525 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 — 99.48% day-level agreement with USGS's own published records for the same gages, across 9 co-listed station(s) and 98,879 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.
14 gage(s) / 128,359 daily values (1895-10-01–2026-07-06); 124 structure(s) with diversion records; 279 with decreed rights. Methodology has not yet had independent expert review — treat every figure as an advisory screen, not an administrative or legal conclusion.
40 water-level measurements across 7 monitored well(s) — 4 alluvial, 0 bedrock — plus 6 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 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.
10 reservoir(s) with 3,375 storage measurement(s), 1950–2026. Basin storage as of 2025-10-24 (the record's own end — reservoir records publish ~annually): 425 AF across 5 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 |
|---|---|---|
| ▸ MCPHEE RESERVOIR (7103614) | 277,391 | 2010-10-31 |
| ▸ GROUNDHOG RESERVOIR (7103612) | 4,776 | 2011-10-14 |
| ▸ SUMMIT RESERVOIR (7103619) | 240 | 2025-10-22 |
| ▸ BIG PINE RESERVOIR (7103606) | 99 | 2025-10-22 |
| ▸ LOST CANYON LAKE (7103613) | 34 | 2025-10-24 |
| ▸ BUCK PASTURE RESERVOIR (7103607) | 27 | 2025-10-16 |
| ▸ ETHEL BELMEAR RESERVOIR (7103610) | 25 | 2025-10-17 |
| ▸ WILSON RESERVOIR (7103621) | 8 | 2011-10-27 |
Decreed rights on this network run from 1879-05-31 to 2023-03-30. 11 abandonment screens and 51 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: 363 across 279 structure(s); 63 structure(s) carry 0 court-case references. Advisory reading aids on public DWR data — not administrative or legal conclusions.
Abandonment radar (11 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 ~1950 — idleness that begins before then may be unreported use, not nonuse (flagged † below).
- BUCK PASTURE RESERVOIR (7103607) (1963-07-01, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 40 years idle
- ETHEL BELMEAR RESERVOIR (7103610) (1944-07-01, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1969 — 40 years idle
- ROGERS PUMP DIVERSION (7100590) (1970-07-05, 1.0 cfs decreed): last active 1974 — 35 years idle
- LOST CANYON LAKE (7103613) (1970-07-05, 0.0 cfs decreed): last active 1974 — 35 years idle
- PAPOOSE CREEK PL NO 1 (7100577) (1893-12-31, 0.5 cfs decreed): last active 1978 — 31 years idle
- DOLORES HATCHERY PL NO 1 (7100524) (1948-03-01, 5.0 cfs decreed): last active 1979 — 30 years idle
- DOLORES WATER DIVR HGT (7100627) (1881-05-01, 11.5 cfs decreed): last active 1984 — 25 years idle
- SUCKLA PUMP SITE (7100607) (1935-06-03, 3.5 cfs decreed): last active 1985 — 24 years idle
- CHAPMAN DITCH (7100663) (1899-08-15, 0.2 cfs decreed): last active 1987 — 22 years idle
- JESSE LOVE DITCH (7100553) (1887-06-01, 6.0 cfs decreed): last active 1997 — 12 years idle
Compliance screens (51 advisory flags)
Screened 70 of 279 structures with rights (88 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.
- MCPHEE RESERVOIR INLET (7100569): Observed p99 daily rate 1725.6 cfs (max 3535.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 585.0 cfs across 15666 recorded day(s).
- MCPHEE POWER PLANT (7100673): Observed p99 daily rate 80.0 cfs (max 96.8) exceeds total decreed absolute 78.0 cfs across 25492 recorded day(s).
- DOLORES HATCHERY PL NO 1 (7100524): Observed p99 daily rate 15.0 cfs (max 15.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 5.0 cfs across 2270 recorded day(s).
- MCEWEN DITCH (7100567): Observed p99 daily rate 9.9 cfs (max 10.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 8.2 cfs across 10073 recorded day(s).
- KEYSTONE DITCH (7100555): Observed p99 daily rate 9.2 cfs (max 9.3) exceeds total decreed absolute 4.1 cfs across 11628 recorded day(s).
- MORIARITY DITCH (7100573): Observed p99 daily rate 9.0 cfs (max 12.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 6.5 cfs across 19978 recorded day(s).
- LEAVENSWORTH DITCH (7100562): Observed p99 daily rate 8.6 cfs (max 8.6) exceeds total decreed absolute 3.0 cfs across 8186 recorded day(s).
- QUARRY NO 1 DITCH (7100582): Observed p99 daily rate 8.4 cfs (max 9.0) exceeds total decreed absolute 6.5 cfs across 11430 recorded day(s).
- KING NO 1 DITCH (7100556): Observed p99 daily rate 8.0 cfs (max 12.3) exceeds total decreed absolute 2.3 cfs across 2566 recorded day(s).
- HAMMOND AND CLARK DITCH (7100546): Observed p99 daily rate 7.9 cfs (max 9.3) exceeds total decreed absolute 7.6 cfs across 15578 recorded day(s).
Seniority (top structures by decreed rate)
| Structure | Senior priority date | Rights | Decreed abs (cfs) | Decreed abs (AF) | Conditional? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOLORES TUNNEL (7104675) | 1879-05-31 | 10 | 1186.9 | 0 | yes |
| MCPHEE RESERVOIR INLET (7100569) | 1940-09-10 | 1 | 585.0 | 0 | — |
| BEAVER DITCH (7100638) | 1929-10-24 | 1 | 150.0 | 0 | — |
| LITTLE FISH CREEK FEEDER DITCH (7100727) | 1983-06-30 | 1 | 150.0 | 0 | — |
| SUMMIT DITCH (7100609) | 1913-06-14 | 1 | 135.0 | 0 | — |
| TURKEY CREEK DITCH (7100618) | 1886-07-16 | 2 | 86.5 | 0 | — |
| DOLORES MINIMUM FLOW (7100639) | 1975-05-01 | 1 | 78.0 | 0 | — |
| MCPHEE POWER PLANT (7100673) | 1981-04-30 | 1 | 78.0 | 0 | — |
| DOLORES RIVER (7101915) | 1984-07-13 | 1 | 50.0 | 0 | — |
| DOLORES RIVER (7101912) | 1984-07-13 | 1 | 35.0 | 0 | — |
| DOLORES RIVER (7101907) | 1984-07-13 | 1 | 20.0 | 0 | — |
| WEST FORK DOLORES RIVER (7101921) | 1984-07-13 | 1 | 17.0 | 0 | — |
| DOLORES HATCHERY PL NO 2 (7100525) | 1965-12-01 | 1 | 15.0 | 0 | — |
| BANKSTON DITCH (7100500) | 1949-08-01 | 1 | 12.0 | 0 | — |
| DOLORES WATER DIVR HGT (7100627) | 1881-05-01 | 4 | 11.5 | 0 | yes |
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.