Colorado River Health Assessment Framework (CoRHAF): Bridging the Data Gap for Scalable Riverscape Monitoring
Brad Johnson1, Kim Lennberg2, Seth Mason3, Steven Reeves4, Andrea Harbin-Monahan5*
1Johnson Environmental Consulting, Carbondale, CO
2Alba Watershed Consulting, Boulder, CO,
3Lotic Hydrological, Carbondale, CO
4Colorado Water Conservation Board, Westminster, CO, steven.reeves@state.co.us
5Colorado Water Conservation Board, Westminster, CO
Effective riverscape restoration and stream management are critically dependent on baseline data, yet numerous river reaches throughout Colorado lack the collected metrics necessary to guide decision-making. Developing comprehensive Stream Management Plans (SMPs) often presents significant capacity and financial hurdles for local communities and concerned citizens. To address this persistent data scarcity challenge, the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) and a consortium of leading experts initiated the development of the Colorado River Health Assessment Framework (CoRHAF), in response to Colorado Water Plan action item 3.1.
CoRHAF is a non-prescriptive tool designed to standardize river health assessment frameworks. It consists of a common knowledge framework coupled with a templated worksheet that guides stakeholders through a systematic decision-making process. The primary function of the tool is to translate an initial concern or interest in a local river into a defined set of appropriate metrics for data collection.
This framework is built upon decades of accumulated river health assessment science and has been rigorously refined by practitioners statewide. CoRHAF’s innovation lies in its ability to harness the inherent complexities of watersheds where necessary, while simplifying the human decision process to provide the shortest, most direct path from a simple concern to the acquisition of meaningful, actionable data.
The completed CoRHAF tool significantly lowers the capacity and financial barrier to entry for baseline data collection, thereby expanding the ability of communities to monitor and manage their local stream health. CoRHAF provides resource managers with a proven, scalable mechanism to identify and prioritize effective restoration and management actions in data-poor areas across Colorado.