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News Article
A letter: From a student of drought, to managing through one
Nathan Elder studied Colorado’s 2002-03 drought. Now, he's water supply manager for 1.5 million people.
Editor’s note: In this letter to a group of students, Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s manager of water supply, reflected on his path from a student learning about drought to his current role helping manage the water supply for 1.5 million people.
A letter to college students and future water professionals,
As students preparing for careers in water, climate, and watershed management, you are entering the field at a consequential moment. Colorado and the West are once again facing drought conditions in 2026 that deserve close attention — not because they are identical to what came before, but because they are meaningfully different from the 2002 drought many of us still reference as a benchmark.
The 2002 drought remains etched into Colorado’s collective memory for good reason. It was defined by historically low snowpack, extremely dry soils, widespread wildfires, and visible, immediate impacts on reservoirs and rivers across the state. For many water professionals working today, 2002 was a formative event — one that continues to influence infrastructure investments, drought planning, and conservation programs for decades to come.
In 2002, while I was a student in Colorado State University’s Watershed Science Program, I observed the effects of extreme drought and wildfire on water supply systems firsthand. Horsetooth Reservoir was significantly drawn down as inflows declined and operational storage was constrained.
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Following the Hayman Fire in 2002, which was Colorado’s largest wildfire until the summer of 2020, I assisted graduate students with field and analytical work to quantify post fire sediment yields and runoff responses from watersheds upstream of Cheesman Reservoir.
More than two decades later, as a water manager at Denver Water, I continue to manage the legacy and ongoing impacts of these events at Denver Water reservoirs. Given current hydroclimatic conditions, I anticipate that similar watershed responses — and the associated monitoring and mitigation efforts — will be required again this year and likely into next year.
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What makes the current drought striking is not its similarity to 2002, but how fundamentally different it is. Conditions to date are markedly worse. Snowpack peaked earlier than ever observed and melted at a pace we have not previously experienced.
Earlier runoff reduces our ability to capture and manage water effectively. Hotter springs and summers increase evaporative losses and outdoor water use, even when total precipitation appears reasonable. These compounding factors place sustained pressure on systems that were largely designed for a different climate regime.
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This is the reality your generation of scientists will inherit: Drought that is increasingly shaped by warming temperatures, altered hydrology, and overlapping stressors rather than singular, dramatic deficits. The fundamentals you are learning — snow hydrology, soil moisture dynamics, ecohydrology, water rights, and system engineering — are no longer academic abstractions. They are tools needed right now to interpret conditions that don’t fit neatly into historical analogs.
The comparison between 2002 and 2026 underscores an important lesson. Planning solely for the worst drought of the past is no longer sufficient. Water managers must plan for variability, non-stationarity, and rapid change. Understanding how earlier runoff affects storage reliability, how warmer temperatures change consumptive use, and how ecosystems respond to prolonged moisture stress will be essential skills in the years ahead.
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I encourage you to pay close attention to this year — not just in the data, but in how institutions and communities respond. Watch how forecasts are communicated, how uncertainty is handled, and how tradeoffs are made. These are the real-world contexts in which your scientific training will be applied.
The drought of 2002 taught Colorado that vulnerability was greater than we had assumed. The drought of 2026 is teaching us that the rules themselves are changing. As future water professionals, you will help translate that lesson into action.
And remember, mother nature always bats last.
Sincerely,
Nathan Elder
Manager of Water Supply/Denver Water
B.S in Watershed Science from Colorado State University, 2006
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