2026/02/22 by James Ferrin · 1 voice
paper · doi:10.5281/zenodo.18730018
openalex publication_date 2026/02/22 · openalex created_date 2026/02/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
The “conservation paradox” reflects a mismatch between modern hydrology and legacy terminology. The accounting and language used across Western water management were built in an era of abundance, when return flows, reservoir evaporation, groundwater substitution, and terminal lakes were not central to basin scale outcomes. As scarcity intensified, those inherited frameworks no longer described how the system actually functions. What appear to be contradictions in agriculture, municipal conservation, and reservoir operations are not hydrologic paradoxes but artifacts of outdated vocabulary and incomplete accounting. This paper updates those frameworks, replacing assumption driven language with mechanism first clarity so the basin can be described, and managed, as it operates today.