Evaluating Urban Storm-Water Infrastructure Design in Response to Projected Climate Change
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 16, Issue 11
Abstract
One of the goals of storm-water infrastructure design is to mitigate effects resulting from extreme hydrologic events. Projected changes in climate are expected to lead to an increase in the frequency and magnitude of extreme rainfall events for many regions. Accordingly, existing storm-water infrastructure may not meet design standards in future decades. The North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program is currently disseminating high resolution climate data to facilitate climate change impact assessments. A simple framework is presented for assessment of storm-water infrastructure in response to climate change. First, the projected changes in the 6-hour, 100-year design-storm depth for a watershed in Las Vegas Valley, Nevada, are calculated from several climate scenarios by using regional frequency analysis. Climate model projections vary substantially for this region and time scale. Climate model performance is assessed by using gridded reanalysis data. The projected changes in design-storm depths are incorporated into an existing HEC-HMS model. The HEC-HMS simulation results indicate potential exceedences of current design standards for select storm-water infrastructure components under projected climatic change scenarios.
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Acknowledgments
The writers would like to thank Ajay Kalra, Brian Rowley, Mark Stone, and Julian Zhu for their assistance with the development of tools used in this work. The writers would also like to thank the CCRFCD for access to their storm-water models and documentation and NARCCAP for providing the data. National Centers for Environmental Prediction Reanalysis data is provided by NOAA Physical Sciences Division, Boulder, Colorado. NARCCAP is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. DOE, NOAA, and the EPA. The funding for this work was provided by NSF Award NSFCMMI 0846952.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 16 • Issue 11 • November 2011
Pages: 865 - 873
Copyright
© 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 1, 2010
Accepted: Jan 12, 2011
Published online: Oct 14, 2011
Published in print: Nov 1, 2011
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