Surface Water Parsing

Parceling Out the Colorado
(a) People have built dozens of dams, reservoirs, diversions, canals, and aqueducts to control flooding on the Colorado River and distribute its waters to thousands of municipalities and farms. This is the Palo Verde Dam, which diverts about 50 m3 (1800 ft3) of water per second to irrigate 490 km2 (120,000 acres) of land on the west side of the Colorado River in California.
(b) Because so much water is diverted for human use, the river that finally reaches Mexico and the sea is shallow and salty.