Evaluating Variations in Great Salt Lake Inflow to Infer Human
Consumptive Water Use, A Volume Reconstruction Approach
Abstract
The declining water level in Great Salt Lake (GSL) has been attributed
to human consumptive water use that depletes natural streamflow into the
lake. Understanding depletions due to historical consumptive water use
within the GSL Basin is important to managing present and future lake
conditions. Direct calculations of consumptive water use in the basin
are made by summing detailed uses and return flows. However, this method
is limited by insufficient data and resulting estimates thus far have
been disparate. In this study, we reconstructed total GSL water inputs
and stream inflows using lake levels recorded from 1847-2023 to estimate
the magnitude of reductions due to consumptive use and the associated
lake level decline. To do so, we developed a method that uses lake
volume changes derived from bathymetry and water surface elevation
measurements along with estimates of annual evaporation and
precipitation over the lake to hindcast inflow volume to the lake. The
declining trend in lake inflow, without associated precipitation or
natural streamflow trends, was used to quantify basin wide water
depletions to be up to 2.3 km3/yr and the current lake level decline
associated with this estimate to be as much as 4.6 meters. This basin
wide depletion estimate depends only on lake level, precipitation, and
evaporation estimates and is not limited by the challenges of
aggregating individual diversions and return flows.