LRE Water
Project Location Denver, CO      |     Services Water Innovation & Technology

Alluvial Aquifer Accretions and Depletions Analysis Tool (AAADAT)

People Kelly Close, Mark Mitisek

In 2014 and 2015, LRE Water worked with the Colorado Division of Water Resources to build the State’s Alluvial Aquifer Accretions and Depletions Analysis Tool (AAADAT).  This groundbreaking tool uses official diversion records to estimate lagged stream impacts of off-stream diversions (wells) and recharge ponds and provides a daily accounting of these impacts to connected river reaches.  With this tool, river administrators can calculate whether or not total accretions in a river reach fall short of, meet or exceed depletions.  In the case of a shortfall, this tool empowers administrators to take timely action to protect senior water rights, when historically the knowledge of these shortfalls would come weeks too late to be acted upon.  This tool will also allow for the daily accounting of “excess accretions”  which may be developed into a legally available water source for future storage projects or fuel innovation around “water banking” projects.