Identifying Cause of Declining Flows in the Republican River
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 127, Issue 4
Abstract
The Republican River, shared by three states, Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, has yielded depleted streamflow at the Nebraska-Kansas border for about 20 years when compared to values preceding 1970. Based on model results estimating the average annual water balance of the basin, it is concluded that the observed decline in runoff cannot be explained by changes in climatic variables over the area; rather, it is the result of the combined effects of the following human activities: crop irrigation, change in vegetative cover, water conservation practices, and construction of reservoirs and artificial ponds in the basin. These human-induced changes have one property in common: they all increase the amount of water being evaporated over the basin, thereby reducing the amount of water available to runoff.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
Brutsaert, W. ( 1982). Evaporation into the atmosphere, Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 299.
2.
Jensen, M., and Haise, H. (1963). “Estimating evapotranspiration from solar radiation.”J. Irrig. and Drain. Div., ASCE, 89(1), 15–41.
3.
Lettenmaier, D. P., Wood, E. F., and Wallis, J. R. ( 1994). “Hydro-climatological trends in the continental United States, 1948–88.” J. Climate, 7, 586–607.
4.
Linsley, R. K., Franzini, J. B., Freyberg, D. L., and Tchobanoglous, G. ( 1992). Water-resources engineering, 4th Ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, 841.
5.
Maidment, D. R., ed. ( 1993). Handbook of hydrology, McGraw-Hill, New York.
6.
Milly, P. C. D. ( 1994). “Climate, soil water storage, and the average annual water balance.” Water Resour. Res., 30, 2143–2156.
7.
Prescott, J. A. ( 1940). “Evaporation from a water surface in relation to solar radiation.” Trans. Roy. Soc. South. Aust., 64, 114–125.
8.
Rawls, W. J., Brakensiek, D. L., and Miller, N. (1983). “Green-Ampt infiltration parameters from soils data.”J. Hydr. Engrg., ASCE, 109(1), 62–70.
9.
Rodriguez-Iturbe, I., Gupta, V. K., and Waymire, E. ( 1984). “Scale considerations in the modeling of temporal rainfall.” Water Resour. Res., 20, 1611–1619.
10.
Szilagyi, J. ( 1999). “Streamflow depletion investigations in the Republican River basin, USA.” J. Envir. Sys., 27, 251–263.
11.
Thornthwaite, C. W., and Mather, J. R. ( 1957). “Introduction and tables for computing potential evapotranspiration and the water balance.” Publ. in Climatology, Drexel Institute of Technology, Philadelphia, X(3).
12.
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). ( 1978). Republican River Basin, Nebraska: Water and related land resources, Washington, D.C.
13.
Wigley, T. M. L., and Jones, P. D. ( 1985). “Influence of precipitation changes and direct CO2 effects on streamflow.” Nature, 314, 149–151.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 127 • Issue 4 • August 2001
Pages: 244 - 253
History
Received: Nov 1, 1999
Published online: Aug 1, 2001
Published in print: Aug 2001
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.