From Dylan Anderson, Steamboat Pilot and Today
CAP Land Use Climate Win – The Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, Yampa Valley Sustainability Council, and key partners Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District and Colorado Mountain College secured $860,000 in funding to expand upon the first soil moisture monitoring station installed in the Yampa River Basin in September 2022 and to install eight more stations over the next two years. Monitoring soil moisture data is an important step towards a better understanding of how water in our basin is changing due to changing climate.
After installing a soil moisture monitoring station near Stagecoach Reservoir last year, the groups behind that effort have secured money to build eight more stations in the Yampa Valley over the next two years.
The stations could help fill a gap in the data available that water managers, forecasters and water users need to make decisions that are getting increasingly harder because of climate change.
“Our snow-to-flow patterns have been changing considerably in recent years and monitoring soil moisture data is an important step toward a better understanding of how water in our basin is changing due to changing climate,” said Michelle Stewart, executive director of the Yampa Valley Sustainability Council, in a statement.
