Upper Green River Basin (United States) Streamflow Reconstructions
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 15, Issue 7
Abstract
The Upper Green River represents a vital water supply for southwestern Wyoming and Upper/Lower Colorado River Compact states. Rapid development in the southwestern United States combined with the recent drought has greatly stressed the water supply of the Colorado River system, and concurrently increased the interest in long-term variations in streamflow. The current research developed six new tree-ring chronologies in and adjacent to the Upper Green River Basin (UGRB). Nine proxy reconstructions (three main-stem streams and six headwater streams) of UGRB streamflow were created by combining these new tree-ring chronologies with existing tree-ring chronologies from sites adjacent to the UGRB. All UGRB streamflow reconstructions extended back to the year 1615 or earlier. The variance explained by these reconstructions ranged from a low of 0.44 at one headwaters gauge to 0.65 for the lowest main-stem gauge in the drainage. An extended reconstruction of the main-stem Green River gauge near Greendale, Utah extends back to 1439. As a group, the nine reconstructions show that strong regional coherency in interannual flow variability and multiyear to decadal flow regimes are consistent features of the preinstrumental period. Focusing on the Green River at Greendale reconstruction, our analyses point to unusual wetness in the 20th century and a regional hydroclimate characterized by inherent nonstationarity. Overall, these results suggest that instrumental records capture a relatively small subset of potential streamflow variability in the UGRB.
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Acknowledgments
This research is supported by the University of Wyoming Water Research Program funded jointly by the USGS, the Wyoming Water Development Commission, and the University of Wyoming. The writers would like to acknowledge James Prairie (USBR) and Paul Miller (USBR/UNLV) for the providing natural flow estimates and the disaggregated flow estimates for the three CRSS node gauges in the UGRB. We also thank Jared Despain and Mike Follum for field and laboratory assistance in tree-ring chronology development. Additionally, the writers wish to thank Connie Woodhouse and Jeff Lukas for providing training and workshops in support of this research.UNSPECIFIED
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 15 • Issue 7 • July 2010
Pages: 567 - 579
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Jan 5, 2009
Accepted: Oct 26, 2009
Published online: Dec 4, 2009
Published in print: Jul 2010
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