I’m drafting a 2026 allocation plan for the Upper Clear Creek basin and keep coming back to portfolio-style caps: a 60/30/10 split for municipal, ag, and ecosystem under Tier 1 shortages, with intra-sector trading inside defined bands. Has anyone tested policy triggers that pivot allocations based on weekly soil moisture indices or inflows (e.g., <200 cfs for two weeks) rather than annual targets?
We piloted a trigger like your “<200 cfs for two weeks” in 2022: used a 14‑day rolling median of inflow plus NRCS soil‑moisture <25th percentile, and added a 10‑day cooldown so allocations didn’t ping‑pong — , the weekly flips drove everyone nuts. When it tripped, we tightened muni by 3% inside the 60/30/10 and widened ag intra‑sector trading bands by +5% to smooth demand; USGS alerts helped automate it: https://waterdata.usgs.gov. If you try it, add hysteresis (enter at <200 cfs, exit only after >240 cfs for 10 days) — @maria.d found that was the make‑or‑break.
For our 2026 draft we paired your 60/30/10 Tier 1 with a two-step trigger: if the main gage’s 14‑day median slips below the 30th percentile, we pivot the next Monday and lock it for 21 days to avoid whipsaw. To curb band gaming, we cap same‑week intra‑sector trades at 15% of a block and skim a 1% “stability fee” on cross‑subbasin swaps — @dwilso34 this made ops way cleaner.