Water Resources in the Truckee Meadows

Abstract

Over the last century water supply and demand conditions have changed in northern Nevada. Climate change is causing increased temperatures, evaporation, and declining snowpack storage (Siirila-Woodburn, 2021). There is considerable uncertainty about the future magnitude of annual precipitation (Lynn, et al., 2015), but increased variability is expected (Zhang et al., 2021; Gonzalez et al., 2018). Increased precipitation variability may translate into longer and more severe droughts or more frequent flooding. Continued warming trends will likely result in more precipitation falling as rain instead of snow, which has the potential to decrease the region’s snowpack (Harpold et al., 2017; Hatchett et al., 2018; Cooper et al., 2016). Changing conditions will require changes in water resources management strategies to improve efficiencies, and sustained actions that conserve available resources and ongoing adaptive management. The Truckee Meadows Water Authority (TMWA) manages its water resources to provide a resilient and reliable water supply for the region. TMWA is continuing its adaptive management strategy by analyzing a broad range of future conditions and planning for solutions to deal with the changing climate and increasing population. This article provides an overview of TMWA, its service area, supply sources, water rights, future supply scenarios, and adaptive management strategies (TMWA, 2020).