Watershed management experiments in the Colorado Front Range

Abstract

Summer cloudburst storms occur frequently on the eastern flank of the Colorado Range below 9,000 feet elevation. The intensity of these storms is high, often exceeding three inches per hour for 10-minute intervals. Floods from the cloudburst storms cause much damage to lands and improvements in the adjacent plains. A considerable portion of this damage is due to sediment deposited in stream channels and reservoirs, across mountain roads, in homes and towns, in irrigation canals and ditches. Sediment damage amounts to over $600,000 annually in the South Platte River system above Greeley, Colorado (8). A principal contributor of sediment is the forest and range foothill area where sheet and gully erosion account for 95 per cent of the sediment deposited and the annual rate amounts to 0.25 acre-foot per square mile (Figure 1).

Citation

Love, L. D. 1953. Watershed management experiments in the Colorado Front Range. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation. 8: 213-218.