Colorado's River Health Assessment Framework

The 2023 Colorado Water Plan called for the development of the Colorado River Health Assessment Framework (CoRHAF), a comprehensive structure for guiding the assessment of stream and river health across the state. The framework intends to support institutions, practitioners, and watershed groups in Colorado as they endeavor to understand the conditions of local waterways.

The Colorado River Health Assessment Framework provides a standardized yet adaptable scaffolding for assessing and communicating river health. The CoRHAF is not of itself an assessment method. It is an approach to assessing and communicating river health in a way that meets unique watershed and stakeholder group needs. The CoRHAF reflects a conceptual model that includes fundamental Drivers of river health – things like flow regime, water quality, and riparian vegetation. Drivers broad environmental characteristics or processes that represent whole scientific domains and a exert strong influence on river conditions. The conceptual model that CoRHAF is built upon suggests that evaluation of Drivers and their constituent parts (i.e. Components) will provide a holistic view on river health. The eight default Drivers of river health suggested for use in CoRHAF are:

• Flow Regime
• Sediment Regime
• Water Quality
• Wood Regime
• Riparian Habitat
• Channel Dynamics
• Aquatic Habitat
• Aquatic Food Web

More details and information coming Soon!