For the first time, the federal government in the US declared a water shortage for the Colorado River basin due to a historic drought, which will lead to water cuts in some southwestern states starting October 2021.
About
The Colorado River is one of the principal rivers in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico.
The 2,330 km river starts at La Poudre Pass in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado in Grand Lake, Colorado.
It flows through the southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border.
After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora.
In the Lower Basin, the Hoover Dam controls floods and regulates water delivery and storage.
Apart from the Hoover dam, there is the Davis Dam, Parker Dam and the Imperial Dam that regulate the release of water from the Hoover Dam.