In the News
The terminal Great Salt Lake basin is a complex water system comprising rivers, wetlands and the Great Salt Lake. Meeting water needs requires collaboration among researchers and water managers to coordinate efforts to facilitate deeper understanding of systems while accounting for all the water users in the basin.
One important “user” is the environment itself. River and wetland ecosystems throughout the basin rely on water at certain times, with specific magnitudes, to support all the species that call them home. However, many places don’t have the data required to fully understand the relationship between streamflow and wetland and river ecosystem health.
Belize Lane, an associate professor at the Utah Water Research Laboratory, is leading a research effort to leverage ongoing Great Salt Lake water conservation efforts to also support river and wetland ecosystem health throughout the Great Salt Lake basin. A Functional Flows Framework has been developed for the basin to characterize how often, how much, for how long, when, and where flow is necessary to support aquatic ecosystem health....
