CONNECTION TO THE COLORADO WATER PLAN

WATER EDUCATION'S ROLE IN THE COLORADO WATER PLAN

Spurred by devastating droughts in the early 2000s, Colorado began a journey to define the impending water resource challenges of the 21st century and to identify strategies and decisive actions to address those challenges. The culmination of that effort was the 2015 Colorado Water Plan (CWP), which was adopted by the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) in 2015.

The state’s water education community played an important role in the development of the CWP. They worked to educate the public about the role of the Basin Roundtables and created mechanisms for public input via the Public Education, Participation, and Outreach Workgroup (PEPO). The CWP includes water education as a core component of achieving water sustainability by 2050, as outlined in Chapter 9.5 of the CWP. Recognizing the important role of water education, each Basin Roundtable’s Basin Implementation Plan (BIP) also includes long-term goals and strategies related to cultivating an educated and engaged citizenry.

THE CHALLENGE OF SUSTAINABLE WATER BY 2050

The 2015 Colorado Water Plan (CWP) projected a water supply shortfall of more than 500,000 acre-feet annually by 2050 if current trends continue. This supply gap is exacerbated by population growth and climate change. In addition to this growing water supply gap, the CWP describes the other “big water challenges facing Colorado” as:

• Agricultural dry-up: The purchase and permanent transfer of agricultural water rights to support growing communities threatens the state and rural communities with significant reductions in irrigated agriculture and local food production.
• Critical environmental concerns: The need to protect and restore water quality, watershed health, and ecosystem resilience in the face of increasing water demands and climate change is as critical as ever.
• Variable climatic conditions: Forecasts show Colorado could face diminished precipitation and shrinking water supplies as well as increased demand associated with hotter temperatures and a longer growing season.
• Inefficient regulatory processes: Lengthy, expensive and inefficient permitting processes have stalled water providers’ ability to respond to changing conditions.
• Increasing funding needs: Absent adequate investment, Colorado cannot effectively address its environmental, recreational, agricultural, and community needs for water.

A COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION THAT RECOGNIZES COLORADO'S VALUES

The 2015 Colorado Water Plan (CWP) served as a foundation for Colorado to address the state's core water values, as articulated by Gov. John Hickenlooper in the 2013 executive order directing the Colorado Water Conservation Board to develop the CWP:

• A productive economy that supports vibrant and sustainable cities, viable and productive agriculture, and a robust skiing, recreation, and tourism industry;
• Efficient and effective water infrastructure promoting smart land use; and
• A strong environment that includes healthy watersheds, rivers and streams, and wildlife

 
The CWP recognizes the availability and management of water as a far-reaching, interrelated system facing complex challenges. Therefore, the CWP outlines a comprehensive solution comprised of eight measurable objectives. SWEAP specifically addresses the “Education, Outreach, and Innovation” objective.

COLORADO WATER PLAN MEASURABLE OBJECTIVES

Supply-Demand Gap: Reduce projected 2050 municipal and industrial gap in water supply from as much as 560,000 acre-feet to zero acre-feet by 2030.
Conservation: Achieve 400,000 acre-feet of municipal and industrial water conservation by 2050.
Land Use: By 2025, 75 percent of Coloradans will live in communities that have incorporated water-saving actions into land-use planning.
Agriculture: Agricultural economic productivity will keep pace with growing state, national, and global needs, even if some acres go out of production.
Storage: Attain 400,000 acre-feet of water storage in order to manage and share conserved water and the yield of identified projects and processes by 2050.
Watershed Health, Environment, and Recreation: Cover 80 percent of the locally prioritized lists of rivers with stream management plans, and 80 percent of critical watersheds with watershed protection plans, all by 2030.
Funding: Investigate options to raise additional revenue in the amount of $100 million annually ($3 billion by 2050) starting in 2020.
Education, Outreach, and Innovation: Significantly improve the level of public awareness and engagement regarding water issues statewide by 2020, as determined by water awareness surveys, and engage Coloradans statewide on at least five key water challenges (identified by CWCB) that should be addressed by 2030.

HOW WATER EDUCATION ADVANCES THE COLORADO WATER PLAN

​The 2015 Colorado Water Plan’s (CWP) success depends upon an educated citizenry that is actively engaged in discussing, funding, and implementing balanced water solutions. This dynamic relies upon robust, sustainable water education that focuses on and delivers the following education objective identified in the CWP:

• Significant improvement of public awareness and engagement regarding water issues statewide by 2020*, as determined by water awareness surveys.

 
*SWEAP implementation began in January 2020; as a result, SWEAP’s target for this objective has been extended to the end of 2025.

A PLAN FOR WATER EDUCATION

In Chapter 9.5, the 2015 Colorado Water Plan (CWP) calls for the creation of “a data-based water education plan” as one of three critical actions to achieve the measurable objective. SWEAP is that plan.
 
Further, the CWP requires that the plan be based on an assessment of water education so that it “addresses critical gaps in water education, advances efforts in the Colorado Water Plan, and supports Basin Roundtable work.” While the state has not completed the statewide assessment contemplated in the CWP, an important corollary was accomplished when the One World One Water Center completed the “2018 Water Education Asset Map.”
 
In addition to reviewing the results of the 2018 Asset Map and other early reports, the SWEAP drafting process included an analysis informed by more than 60 water industry and water education experts. Systems-thinking materials developed by ThinkWater were also considered, as were past survey instruments used to measure Coloradan’s attitudes, perceptions, values, and knowledge of water and water issues.