EWRI Monthly Meeting - February

Presenters

Bo Svoma

Bohumil (Bo) Svoma is a Meteorologist in the Surface Water department at the Salt River Project (SRP). Dr. Svoma has published 31 peer-reviewed research articles in the field of hydroclimatology and his current research interests are focused on improving the predictability of Arizona streamflow from sub-seasonal through decadal time scales. Dr. Svoma’s operational duties include watershed monitoring and weather forecasting. Dr. Svoma received his PhD in Geographical Sciences at Arizona State University in 2011 and BS degrees in Mathematics and Geographical Sciences from Arizona State University in 2007.

Stephen Flora

Stephen Flora is a Senior Hydrologist with Surface Water at Salt River Project (SRP), a water and power utility serving much of the Phoenix metropolitan area. His responsibilities at SRP focus on watershed monitoring, streamflow forecasting, flood emergency reservoir operations, forest health activities, and drought preparedness planning for SRP reservoirs within the Salt and Verde watershed. Prior to working at SRP for the past 10 years, Stephen worked 10 years as a Hydrogeologist for environmental consulting firms and as a Hydrologist with the Arizona Department of Water Resources. During that time, he worked on various projects related to well installation and testing, groundwater modeling, surface water monitoring, water quality sampling, and hydrologic field data collection and analysis.  Stephen holds a Master of Science degree in Geology from Northern Arizona University, is a Registered Professional Geologist in Arizona, and previously served as a board member of the Arizona Hydrological Society.

Presentation Synopsis:

The Phoenix Area water supply consists of groundwater and two surface water sources, the Colorado River and the Salt-Verde River system. The long-term water balance and response to drought differs between the sources, with storage in the Colorado River reservoirs sharply declining during multidecade drought and Salt-Verde River reservoir storage increasing slightly. Declining Colorado River supplies, lost reservoir capacity from sedimentation, and conjunctively managing surface water and groundwater supplies present future challenges to Arizona water resources and there is currently not an individual solution to address these challenges. There are, however, several opportunities to leverage existing infrastructure and create new infrastructure to capitalize on future wet years to increase water supply sustainability and successfully manage supplies through the deeper droughts of the future.