climate change

Researchers looked at more than 750,000 wildfires in the West between 1992 and 2020. In the second half of that period, the number of reported wildfires were down by 31%, but acreage burned was up 40%.

Longer wildfire seasons can blanket communities in smoke. Summer heat records continue to rise. Drought remains a persistent concern for water supplies, agriculture and ecosystems.

Water negotiators, river enthusiasts, Native tribes and lots of lawyers convened at the University of Colorado Law School on Thursday to take stock of the future of the dwindling Colorado River.

Water experts are calling for urgent changes at Lake Powell and Lake Mead, as a dry winter could send reservoir levels dangerously low.

Wildfire risk is rising across the West after a dry winter and ongoing drought left vegetation more vulnerable to fire. Now, researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno are putting about $3.5 million in federal funding to work on a project aimed at reducing that risk in the eastern Sierra Nevada.

A team of researchers at Arizona State University is building models to track the amount of water in snow, soils and streams.

A new proposal for sharing Colorado River water would bring negotiators together every couple of years. That could create uncertainty and get in the way of big solutions for the future.

The world’s smallest rabbit is at the center of a new legal fight that conservation groups say could have broad implications for sagebrush ecosystems across the Mountain West.

The federal government shifts away from workplace inspections. Meanwhile some states have their own workplace rules to address heat.

Storms across the Western U.S. are dumping more rain in shorter bursts than in decades past. But according to new research, that doesn’t necessarily mean landscapes are holding onto more water.