Lees Ferry Natural Flow to Upper Basin Consumptive Use Sankey

Provisional 2021 to 2024 Upper Basin consumptive uses and losses shown as a Sankey from Lees Ferry natural flow through state totals, use categories, and a downstream bucket.

This chart treats Lees Ferry natural flow as the annual accounting source, then branches it into Upper Basin state consumptive uses and losses, undistributed reservoir evaporation, and a single remaining downstream flow bucket. Within each state branch, the flow is further broken into use categories such as irrigation, municipal and industrial demand, and exports outside the system.

How To Use This Chart

Select a water year to redraw the Sankey for that year.

The left column is annual Lees Ferry natural flow.
The middle column splits that flow into Upper Basin state totals, a non-state undistributed reservoir evaporation branch, and a single remaining downstream flow bucket.
The right column breaks each state total into the official consumptive use and loss categories reported in the Upper Colorado River System provisional tables.

This is an accounting diagram, not a literal map of where water physically originated. The downstream bucket is the remainder of annual natural flow after the Upper Basin consumptive use and loss accounting shown here. For now it is kept as one continuation bucket rather than being broken into Lower Basin deliveries, storage, and use.

Hover any branch or node to inspect the value in acre-feet and its share of the year’s natural flow or state total.

Lees Ferry Natural Flow to Upper Basin Consumptive Use Sankey

Loading Upper Basin consumptive use Sankey…

The downstream bucket is the residual annual natural flow after the Upper Basin consumptive use and loss totals and undistributed reservoir evaporation shown here.

Data Sources

Local derived Sankey dataset transcribed from the official Upper Colorado River System provisional consumptive use and losses tables.¹
Local Lees Ferry natural flow annual series.²
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Upper Colorado River Basin Consumptive Uses and Losses Report: Provisional 2021–2025.³
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Upper Colorado River System consumptive uses and losses reports index.⁴

1
Local Sankey data file - upper-basin-consumptive-use-sankey.json. ↩︎
2
Local Lees Ferry natural flow annual series - lees-ferry-natural-flow-water-year.json. ↩︎
3
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Upper Colorado River Basin Consumptive Uses and Losses Report: Provisional 2021–2025. ↩︎
4
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Upper Colorado River System consumptive uses and losses reports and data. ↩︎