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~ 2.0 LOCATION PHYSIOGRAPHY AND CLIMATE 2.1 Location The Green River Basin is located in northeastern Utah, southwestern Wyoming and southw~stern Colorado. The Green River extends from the west slopes of the Wind River Range in Wyoming to below Cisco in south central Utah. It is the largest tributary of the Colorado and delivers nearly one-half of the water at the Colorado River confluence. The Green River Basin comprises a little less than 45,000 square miles of high plateaus and mountains. The Green River, which flows southward through the basin, has a total length of about 730 miles, of which about 291 miles is in Wyoming, 397 in Utah, and 42 in Colorado. The Wyoming part of the drainage basin covers about 17,600 square miles, the part in Utah covers 16,700 square miles, and the part in Colorado covers 10,600 square miles. This area is a part of the great arid region of the west, and in many respects its topographic features are unique. In addition to mountains, hills, plateaus, plains, and valleys, there are buttes, lines of cliffs, canyons, and long narrow gorges hundreds of feet in depth, with precipitous rock walls. 2.2 Physiography The basin is highly diversified and contains a number of various physiographic features. The basin is naturally divided into seven minor basins, which include; Upper Green River Basin, Yampa and White River Basins, Uinta Basin in Utah, and lower Green River Basin [1]. 2.2.1 Upper Green River Basin The Green River rises in the glaciers and numerous small lakes on the western slope of the Wind River Range near the Continental Divide, in southwestern Wyoming, where Trail and Wells Creeks unite to form the main stem. From here the Green flows generally southwesterly into Flaming Gorge Reservoir and from there into Colorado and Utah. In the extreme northern part of the basin frost is not uncommon in every month in the year, and the maximum growing season rarely exceeds 75 days. Accordingly, hay is practically the only crop produced. In the area of the basin below an altitude of 7,000 feet the normal growing season is from 60 to 115 days 2.2.2 Yampa and White River Basins The Yampa and White Rivers are tributary to the Green River. The combined area of the two basins is about 12,830 square miles, 7,950 square miles for the Yampa and 4,880 square miles for the White. Of the total, about 10,600 square miles is in Colorado, and the rest is in southern Wyoming and eastern Utah. Some parts of the surface of these basins consist of open or comparatively level country, but much of it is made up of rolling hills joining the higher mountains. In general, these basins contain only a small amount of tillable land. The valleys in the upper parts of the basins are comparatively small and lay in narrow strips along the main streams. The irrigated and easily irrigable areas are limited to the bottom lands along the principal streams. The widest areas of such lands range from 3 to 5 miles in width. 2-1