Climate change impacts and adaptation in the agricultural sector of the Colorado River Basin: a hydro-economic analysis

Daniel Crespo, Mehdi Nemati, Ariel Dinar, Zachary Frankel and Nicholas Halberg

Chapter 12 in Handbook on Climate Change Impacts, Mitigation, and Adaptation in Agriculture, 2026, pp 258-278 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In the Southwestern United States, the Colorado River Basin and its tributaries supply water to nearly 40 million people and support irrigation on approximately 2.2 million acres of agricultural land. Climate change is intensifying pressure on this system with declining inflows and increasing demands expected to strain current water allocation frameworks. This chapter employs a hydro-economic model to evaluate how the agricultural sector responds to ten climate change scenarios that combine reductions in water availability with increases in crop water requirements. The analysis shows that declining inflows and heightened irrigation demands driven by increased evapotranspiration pose significant challenges to the sustainability of existing agricultural water use. The results also point to substantial economic losses and significant regional variation in the magnitude of these impacts, underscoring the need for adaptive planning, greater economic resilience, and reforms to allocation policies to safeguard the long-term viability of the agricultural sector in the basin.

Keywords: Agriculture; Climate Change; Colorado River Basin; Economic Losses; Hydro-economic Analysis; Land Fallowing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035344963
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