This is Climate One. I'm Ariana Brocious. It's been an unusually warm and dry winter across the west,

and that's bad news for the seven states and 40 million people that rely on water from the Colorado River.

Put simply, the Colorado River is in crisis and has been for a couple

decades. The water flowing into the river from snowmelt and rain is dwindling, partly because of

climate change. The basin's two major reservoirs are at historic lows, and without a sudden

influx of snowstorms, streamflow forecasts for the coming year aren't looking good.

That adds stress to an already drought-stricken region where discussions on future sharing of Colorado Riverwater are tense and stalled out.

We're at a point where we have to make some serious long-term adjustment of expectations.

In other words, people need to agree to take a lot less water than they've been counting on.

And that is always really hard when water is scarce.

The federal government has given states a deadline of February 14th to reach an agreement,

after which the Bureau of Reclamation could divvy up the water between states as it deems fit.

Sarah Porter is director of the Kyle Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University.

In this special long-form interview for our podcast listeners, we discuss what's

led to this crisis, what's keeping states from reaching agreement, and how cities, farmers,

and industries can adapt to less water in an increasingly hotter and drier future.

The Colorado River and its tributaries are the biggest surface water supply in the

inner mountain west. And people rely on that water for agriculture, for industry, for their

domestic use, for all kinds of purposes. Outside of the basin, to begin with, there are a number of very, you know, large cities that rely on imports of water from outside of the Colorado basin that would include Southern California cities, Denver, Albuquerque. We're talking about big cities, big economic centers of activity for the nation. We're talking about

agricultural areas that particularly grow the fruit and fresh vegetables that people all across the

nation rely on, and then important industries, everything from defense to semiconductor chips.

And then on top of that, there are important environmental values of the Colorado River.

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