Science and Innovation

A new paper published today in Science shows a rising risk of water shortages in the Colorado River Basin. Scientists say diminishing snowpack from climate change plays a critical role—not just because snow supplies the river with water, but because it acts as a protective shield against evaporation. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with lead author Chris Milly of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Melissa Sevigny: Your study was about what’s going to happen to the Colorado River as the world continues to get warmer. What did you find out?

A new study released this month models what happen to the health of the planet when giant plants and animal vanish. It’s happened before—at the end of the last Ice Age when mammoths and enormous sloths died out. Humans likely played a part in that extinction and the researchers say Earth’s big animals today are headed for the same fate because of overhunting, habitat loss, climate change and other factors. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with Northern Arizona University’s Andrew Abraham who was one of the authors of the study.

A herd of Arizona elk shipped to West Virginia in 2018 for a restoration project has been hit hard by a brain worm disease. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports. 

In 1929 Charles Lindberg was already famous for making the first solo flight across the Atlantic. But his next adventure was nearly lost to history. It was an aerial survey of the Colorado Plateau.  

The Clean Water Act no longer applies to ephemeral streams which do not flow year round, due to a new rule from the Trump administration. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports on what that means for Arizona.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality estimates about 90 percent of the state’s waterways no longer have federal protection.