Steady low reservoir releases allow downstream aquatic invertebrates (bugs) to lay and hatch eggs and increase production. These releases also reduce revenue from hydropeaking operations, increase costs to hydropower customers, reduce funds to maintain project infrastructure, repay project loans, and exacerbate hydropower production-ecosystem conflicts. This paper has the purpose to (1) quantify tradeoffs between the number of days of bug flows and hydropower revenue, (2) identify ways to reduce costs to hydropower customers, and (3) inform the design of a financial instrument to increase bug production, compensate hydropower customers for costs, and reduce conflict. A linear program identified tradeoffs between hydropower revenue and number of days of steady low releases per month for different contract and market energy prices and monthly release volumes across March to October months when bugs are most productive. We found that bug flows on 8 weekend days per summer month in 2018 from Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona reduced hydropower revenue by $300,000 (June) to $600,000 (August). Shifting bug flow days to Spring/Fall months reduced costs. To reduce conflict, we suggest creating a new financial instrument funded by the Federal Treasury for ~$300,000 to $600,000 per month. The instrument can give ecosystem managers more flexibility to choose days for steady low releases that advantage bugs and pay hydropower producers for costs. Next steps are to engage Federal agencies on the benefits and limitations of the proposed instrument and expand to steady high releases that mobilize sediment, build sandbars, and disadvantage non-native, invasive fish populations.

There have been numerous calls to promote reproducible research. This growing awareness coincides with major advances in data/code sharing technologies. Yet authors, journals, institutions, and funders still need to act to advance more reproducible research. Here, we suggest to view reproducibility as a continuum that includes the 1) availability of data, models, code, and directions to use the digital artifacts, 2) replication of results, and 3) reproducibility of findings. We present a simple survey tool to assess where a peer-reviewed journal article lies on the continuum. We use the tool to assess 360 random sampled articles of the 1,989 articles published in 2017 in six well-regarded hydrology and water resources journals. 49% of sampled articles had some materials available online, but just 5.6% made available all the data, models, code, and directions. For 1.6% of articles, we generated results that replicated some or all of the published results. Assessments took 5 to 14 minutes per article to determine the availability of digital artifacts and 25 to 86 minutes to replicate results (25-75% range). The availability of data, models, code, and directions differed by journal and journal policy towards data availability. From the 360 article sample, we estimate that 0.6% to 6.8% of all articles published in the six journals in 2017 can be replicated using their published artifacts (95% confidence interval). These results suggest several practices to improve the reproducibility of published research. First, authors should provide directions to use their data, models, and code in addition to the digital artifacts. Second, on author submission, journals should use a tool like ours to assess the submission’s position on the reproducibility continuum. Third, journals should formulate policies that require authors to state the intended reproducibility of their work and place relevant information in an easy-to-find article location. Fourth, journals, institutions, and funders should highlight work whose digital artifacts, results, and findings are available, replicable, and reproducible.

We reviewed 80 studies from behavior sciences, environmental psychology, resource management, and health communication fields to learn why some voluntary message campaigns sustained conservation behaviors. We found past campaigns reduced residential water use by 0.6% to 54% and reductions lasted less than 1 year. The most effective campaigns included a public plea, social comparison information, easy-to-adopt conservation tips, and linked to additional resources. Effective campaigns also targeted different socio-psychological drivers, such as intention, altruism, peer pressure, and perception of ease or difficulty in adopting new conservation behaviors. To help users sustain water-saving behaviors for longer periods of time, we suggest managers (a) learn user’s intentions and informational preferences, (b) launch feedback programs during critical periods such as a drought, (c) state what the water authority is doing to achieve the conservation goal, (d) customize message content based on a user’s attitude and information preferences, (e) target one easy-to-implement conservation action at a time, (f) praise efficient behavior, (g) communicate through a variety of internet, paper, and other mediums, (h) regularly update message contents, (i) encourage users to publicly commit to conservation, (j) publicly recognize water savers, and (k) allow users to share their conservation experiences.