My project proposal is granting water rights to terminal lakes in arid environments experiencing climate change driven drought. As climate change increases the temperatures globally, the precipitation is expected to come as more rainfall and less snow (Hall et al., 2023). I would like to focus on lakes in the western part of the United States in the Great Basin region. Because of differences in water rights laws, I would only look at the United States.<\/p>\n
An example case study is Mono Lake, a lake near Los Angeles California. In the 1940\u2019s, the city of Los Angeles received permits to divert water from tributary streams of the lake to the city for hydroelectric power and municipal use (California, 1994). \u00a0The lake levels dropped dramatically until the 1970\u2019s when an effort to allocate water to the lake started. I have found other cases focused on rivers. While maintaining river water levels are important, I would like to focus on terminal lakes. Drying lakes have unique environmental and health concerns (Liu et al., 2013). While Mono Lake is owned by the state of California, most terminal lakes in the western United States are federally owned. I am most interested in another state-owned terminal lake, the Great Salt Lake in Utah.<\/p>\n
For my poster, I have been brainstorming some ways to present the topic. This is the current flow of information I have planned:<\/p>\n
First, as an introduction to the poster, the impact of climate change on terminal lakes and the consequences of shrinking lakes. I would focus on environment and human health concerns to introduce why it is important to preserve these lakes.<\/p>\n
Second, I would explore lakes and rivers that have already received legal rights. This will serve as the baseline of what has happened in the past, and explore the research gap of granting water rights to lakes, not just rivers. This would include how much water would be needed per square km, where the water rights would come from, and the impacts other entities have shown when given water rights.<\/p>\n
Next, I would look at the process of gaining water rights for these entities. I would like to highlight community advocacy, legal requirements, and community\/political push-back.<\/p>\n
Finally, I would have a conclusion with impacts of granting terminal lakes water rights, and any concluding statements.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
References<\/strong><\/p>\n Daniels, B., Parker, E., & Steed, B., (2025). Great Salt Lake and the New Water Security. UC Davis Law and Review<\/em>, 58(5), 2581-2630.<\/p>\n Hall, D. K., Kimball, J. S., Larson, R., DiGirolamo, N. E., Casey, K. A., & Hulley, G. (2023). Intensified warming and aridity accelerate terminal lake desiccation in the Great Basin of the Western United States. Earth and Space Science<\/em>, 10<\/em>(1). https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1029\/2022ea002630<\/a><\/p>\n Liu, H., Y. Yin, S. Piao, F. Zhao,M. Engelsand and P. Ciais. 2013.Disappearing lakes in semiarid northern China: drivers and environmental impact. Environ Sci & Technol<\/em>, 47: 12107\u221212114<\/p>\n State of California Water Resources Control Board (1994). Mono Lake Basin Water Right Decision 1631, https:\/\/waterboards.ca.gov\/publications_forms\/publications\/general\/docs\/monolake_wr_dec1631_a.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My project proposal is granting water rights to terminal lakes in arid environments experiencing climate change driven drought. As climate change increases the temperatures globally, the precipitation is expected to come as more rainfall and less snow (Hall et al., 2023). I would like to focus on lakes in the western part of the UnitedContinue reading “Homework #5b: More Developed Poster Proposal \u2013 Tara Tankersley”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":206,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[257,273],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post-2026","category-poster-topic-proposal-2026"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4510,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4509\/revisions\/4510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}