World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2020
Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on New York City Water Supply System
Publication: World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2020: Groundwater, Sustainability, Hydro-Climate/Climate Change, and Environmental Engineering
ABSTRACT
New York City (NYC) Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is investigating the potential impacts of future climate on the quantity and quality of NYC’s drinking water supply, and as a consequence, how these impacts could influence the operation of reservoirs within the supply system. In this study, we utilize the latest climate projections from 20 global climate models, use rigorous statistical downscaling and temporal disaggregation methods to generate climate scenarios, and use state-of-the-art modeling software system, including DEP’s operations support tool (OST) to evaluate climate change impacts. Compared with the current climate, future (mid-century) annual average air temperature is predicted to increase by 2.0°C, and precipitation by 5%. Significant trends in several climate indices, e.g., number of frost days, snowpack, and extreme rainfall events are also projected. Under these climate conditions, mean annual inflow to the Catskill/Delaware system is expected to increase by 6%, with greater increases (~25%) during December–February and a reduction (~10%) during April–June, lessening the overall seasonal variability. Although minimal change in annual average turbidities in Rondout, Schoharie, and Esopus Creeks are projected, extreme levels of turbidities could increase by >50% and such high turbidity events could be more frequent in the future. Under the projected future climate and current operating rules and assumptions, OST simulations also suggest that the average number of days the NYC water supply system is in drought conditions would remain unchanged. Furthermore, these simulations demonstrate high resiliency, high reliability, and low vulnerability of the water supply system.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank Jordan Gass at NYCDEP for his help with the preparation of Figure 1.
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Published In
World Environmental and Water Resources Congress 2020: Groundwater, Sustainability, Hydro-Climate/Climate Change, and Environmental Engineering
Pages: 152 - 166
Editors: Sajjad Ahmad, Ph.D., and Regan Murray, Ph.D.
ISBN (Online): 978-0-7844-8296-4
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Published online: May 14, 2020
Published in print: May 14, 2020
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