- Reclamation
- R&D
- Research Projects
- Deployment of a floating evaporation pan on Lake Powell, UT-AZ, and Cochiti Lake, NM, to improve evaporation rate measurement accuracy and precision
Deployment of a floating evaporation pan on Lake Powell, UT-AZ, and Cochiti Lake, NM, to improve evaporation rate measurement accuracy and precision
Project ID: 8119
Principal Investigator: Dagmar Llewellyn
Research Topic: System Water Losses
Funded Fiscal Years:
2018,
2019 and
2020
Keywords: None
Research Question
Can deployment of the Collison Floating Evaporation Pan (CFEP) to monitor evaporation loss rates from Reclamation reservoirs improve our understanding of the available water supplies in Reclamation projects?
Need and Benefit
Lake Powell evaporates around 500,000 acre-feet of water annually, based on research conducted in the early 1980's using a mass-transfer analyses and comparisons to Class A evaporation plans. The results of these older studies were used to establish coefficients that are still in use today and are in need of validation and/or refinement. This study aims to provide Reclamation a tool that can be used to refine pan coefficients and/or an alternative method for estimating reservoir evaporation rates.
Contributing Partners
Contact the Principal Investigator for information about partners.
Research Products
Bureau of Reclamation Review
The following documents were reviewed by experts in fields relating to this project's study and findings. The results were determined to be achieved using valid means.
Deployment of the Collison Floating Evaporation Pan on Lake Powell, UT-AZ and Cochiti Lake, NM to Improve Evaporation Rate Measurement Accuracy and Precision (final, PDF, 6.5MB)
By Jacob Collison, Dagmar Llewellyn
Report completed on September 30, 2021
