Colorado River Drought Impacts on Sense of Place and Adaptation for Blue Mesa Reservoir Communities

Project Overview

My research explores the changes that Colorado River reservoir community members and stakeholders have experienced during drought; what sociocultural impacts that landscape and water changes have created; and how political, economic, and emotional factors had influenced individual adaptations and senses of place.

I collected data by conducting and assisting in semi-structured Zoom interviews with participants who hold stake in the reservoirs, to identify if and how they experienced adverse emotional reactions to declining water levels.

I seek to contribute data to the under-researched concept of sense of place and adaptive capacity to climate hazards in order to provide usable information for decision makers and stakeholders in these communities. Together with Western Water Assessment team members, I'll contribute to a manuscript that follows this goal.