Sustainable management of water resources in the Western United States continues to be a primary consideration for local, state, and federal entities. Accordingly, the recently established Colorado River Authority of Utah, whose mission is to "protect, conserve, use, and develop Utah's waters of the Colorado River System" has identified a need for technical tools to enable drought mitigation planning within the Colorado River Basin of Utah. In response to this need, the Utah Colorado River Accounting and Forecasting (UCRAF) project was commissioned with an associated Decision Support Tool (DST).

A pilot UCRAF-DST modeling system is being developed for the Duchesne River basin in northeastern Utah that combines a Depletion-Runoff Calculator (DRC), a RiverWare rule-based accounting-enable simulation model, geospatial datasets, Open ET data, and internet/web services. The modeling system will be used to develop a comprehensive understanding of the current water budget and water rights within the basin and will ultimately be used as a planning tool to evaluate how drought mitigation measures (e.g., fallowing fields, changing irrigation measures, lining canals) affect water availability and water rights at the location implemented and for downstream users. This presentation will highlight the RiverWare model and its role as the central component of the UCRAF-DST modeling system. Preliminary results for drought mitigation concepts will also be described.