Impact of Artificial Reservoir Size and Land Use/Land Cover Patterns on Probable Maximum Precipitation and Flood: Case of Folsom Dam on the American River
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18, Issue 9
Abstract
The design of the dams usually considers available historical data for analysis of the flood frequency. The limitation of this approach is the potential shift in flood frequency due to physically plausible factors that cannot be foreseen during design. For example, future flood extremes may change, among other factors, due to strong local atmospheric feedbacks from the reservoir and surrounding land use and land cover (LULC). Probable maximum flood (PMF), which is the key design parameter for hydraulic features of a dam, is estimated from probable maximum precipitation (PMP) and the hydrology of the watershed. Given the nonlinearity of the rainfall-runoff process, a key question that needs to be answered is How do reservoir size and/or LULC modify extreme flood patterns, specifically probable maximum flood via climatic modification of PMP? Using the American River Watershed (ARW) as a representative example of an impounded watershed with a large artificial reservoir (i.e., Folsom Dam), this study applied the distributed variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model to simulate the PMF from the atmospheric feedbacks simulated for various LULC scenarios (predam, current scenario, nonirrigation, and reservoir-double). The atmospheric feedbacks were simulated numerically as PMP using the regional atmospheric modeling system (RAMS). The RAMS-generated PMP scenarios were propagated through the VIC model to simulate the PMFs. Comparison of PMF results for predam and current scenario conditions showed that PMF peak flow can decrease by about , while comparison of current scenario with nonirrigation PMF results showed that irrigation development has increased the PMF by . On the other hand, the reservoir size had virtually no detectable impact on PMP and consequently on PMF results. Where downstream levee capacity is already underdesigned to handle a dam’s spillway capacity, such as for the case study, such increases indicate a likely impact on downstream flood risk to which any flood management protocol must adapt. The premise that modern dam design and operations should consider an integrated atmospheric-hydrologic modeling approach for estimating proactively potential extreme precipitation variation due to dam-driven LULC change is well-supported by this case study.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The first author was supported partially by the Center of Management Utilization and Protection of Water Resources and the Office of Research at Tennessee Technological University (TTU). All authors acknowledge the support and guidance received from the Surface Water Modeling group of University of Washington in setting up the VIC-3L model. Although opinions expressed belong strictly to authors and do not represent any particular agency, this study benefitted from discussions held with staff from Folsom Dam (USBR) and the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency (SAFCA) at various times.
References
ASCE. (2009). “2009 Report card for nation’s infrastructure.” ASCE infrastructure Rep. card. 〈http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/sites/default/files/RC2009_exsummary.pdf〉 (Jan. 24, 2012).
Association of Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO). (2011). “State and federal oversight of dam safety must be improved.” 〈http://www.damsafety.org/〉 (May 14, 2012).
Baker, V. R., Kochel, R. C., and Patton, P. C. (1988). Flood geomorphology, Wiley-Interscience, New York, 459.
Benaman, J., Showmaker, C. A., and Haith, D. A. (2005). “Calibration and validation of soil and water assessment tool on an agricultural watershed in upstate New York.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 10(5), 363–374.
Biemans, H., et al. (2011). “Impact of reservoirs on river discharge and irrigation water supply during the 20th century.” Water Resour. Res., 47(3), W03509.
Biswas, A. K., and Tortajada, C. (2001). “Development and large dams: A global perspective.” Int. J. Water Resour. Dev., 17, 1, 9–21.
Center for Strategic, and International Studies (CSIS). (2005). “Addressing our global water future.” Sandia National Laboratories, 〈http://csis.org/publication/addressing-our-global-water-future〉 (May 15, 2012).
Central Valley Flood Management Planning Program (CVFMPP). (2011). “2012 Central Valley flood protection plan (CVFPP).” California Department of Water Resources, Sacramento, CA.
Central Valley Flood Management Planning Program (CVFMPP). (2012). “2012 Central Valley flood protection plan (CVFPP): Attachment 8K-climate change analysis.” California Department of Water Resources, Sacramento, CA.
Cherkauer, K. A., Bowling, L. C., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2003). “Variable infiltration capacity cold land process model updates.” Global Planet. Change, 38(1–2), 151–159.
Costa, M. H., Botta, A., and Cardille, J. A. (2003). “Effects of large-scale changes in and cover on the discharge of the Tocantins River, Southeastern Amazonia.” J. Hydrol., 283(1–4), 206–217.
Cotton, W. R. (2003). “Development of new methodologies for determining extreme rainfall.” Colorado Dept. of Natural Resources, 〈http://rams.atmos.colostate.edu/precip-proj〉 (Jul. 15, 2011).
Cotton, W. R., and Pielke, R. A., Sr. (2007). Human impacts on weather and climate, 2nd Ed., Cambridge University Press, New York, 90–144.
Degu, A. M., et al. (2011). “The influence of large dams on surrounding climate and precipitation patterns,” Geophys. Res. Lett., 38(4), L04405.
De Michele, C., Salvadori, G., Canossi, M., Petaccia, A., and Rosso, R. (2005). “Bivariate statistical approach to check adequacy of dam spillway.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 10(1), 50–57.
Dettinger, M. (2011). “Climate change, atmospheric rivers, and floods in California–A multimodel analysis of storm frequency and magnitude changes.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 47(3), 514–523.
Douglas, E. M., and Fairbank, C. A. (2011). “Is precipitation in northern New England becoming more extreme? Statistical analysis of extreme rainfall in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine and updated estimates of the 100-year storm.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 16(3), 203–217.
Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA). (2004). Federal guidelines for dam safety, selecting and accommodating inflow design flood for dams, Interagency Committee on Dam Safety, Washington, DC.
Frank, W. S. (1988). “The cause of Johnstown Flood: A new look at the historic Johnstown Flood of 1889.” 〈file:///O:/Research/Papers/Rebuttal/johnstown.htm〉 (May 15, 2012).
Gleick, P. H. (2011). The world’s water volume 7: The biennial report on freshwater resources, Island, Washington, DC, 127–128.
Graf, W. L. (1999). “Dam nation: A geographic census of American dams and their large-scale hydrologic impacts.” Water Resour. Res., 35(4), 1305–1311.
Graf, W. L. (2003). “Dam removal research status and prospects.” Proc. Heinz Center’s Dam Removal Research Workshop, The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, Washington, DC.
Gross, E. J., and Moglen, G. E. (2007). “Estimating the hydrological influence of Maryland state dams Using GIS and the HEC-1 model.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 12(6), 690–693.
Haimes, Y. Y. (2009). Risk modeling, assessment, and management. Wiley, New Jersey, 310–311.
Hamlet, A. F., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2005). “Production of temporally consistent gridded precipitation and temperature fields for the continental U.S.,” J. Hydrometeorol., 6(3), 330–336.
Hossain, F., et al. (2012). “Climate feedback-based provisions for dam design, operations, and water management in the 21st century.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 17(8), 837–850.
Hossain, F., Jeyachandran, I., and Pielke, R. A., Sr. (2010). “Dam safety effects due to human alteration of extreme precipitation.” Water Resour. Res., 46(3), 1–7.
Krause, P., Boyle, D. P., and Baese, F. (2005). “Comparison of different efficiency criteria for hydrological model assessment.” Adv. Geosci., 5, 89–97.
Liang, X., Lettenmaier, D. P., Wood, E. F., and Burges, S. J. (1994). “A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for GSMs.” J. Geophys. Res., 99(D7), 14415–14428.
Liang, X., Wood, E. F., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (1996). “Surface soil moisture parameterization of the VIC-2L model: Evaluation and modifications.” Global Planet. Change, 13(1–4), 195–206.
Lohmann, D., Nolte-Holube, R., and Raschke, E. (1996). “A large-scale horizontal routing model to be coupled to land surface parameterization schemes.” Tellus, 48(5), 708–721.
Lohmann, D., Raschke, E., Nijssen, B., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (1998). “Regional scale hydrology: II. Application of the VIC-2L Model to the Weser River, Germany.” Hydrol. Sci. J., 43(1), 143–157.
Milly, P. C. D., et al. (2008). “Stationarity is dead: Whither water management.” Science, 319(5863), 573–574.
Moriasi, D. N., Arnold, J. G., Van Liew, M. W., Bingner, R. L., Harmel, R. D., and Veith, T. L. (2007). “Model evaluation guidelines for systematic quantification of accuracy in watershed simulation.” Trans. Am. Soc. Agricul. Biologic. Eng., 50(3), 885–900.
Nagy, I. V., Duash, K. A., and Zsuffa, I. (2002). Hydrological dimensioning and operation of reservoirs: Practical design concepts and principles, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 95–99.
National Research Council (NRC). (1999). Improving American river flood frequency analyses. National Academies Press, Washington, DC.
Ohara, N., Kavvas, M. L., Kure, S., Chen, Z. Q., Jang, S., and Tan, E. (2011). “A physically based estimation of maximum precipitation over American River Watershed, California.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 16(4), 351–361.
Oxlade, C. (2006). Dams, Heinemann, Chicago.
Pielke, R. A. (2001). Mesoscale meteorological modeling, 2nd Ed., Academic Press, San Diego, CA, 41–55.
Pielke, R. A., Sr. (1992). “A comprehensive meteorological modeling system—RAMS.” Meteor. Atmos. Phys., 49(1–4), 69–91.
Ralph, F. M., and Dettinger, M. D. (2011). “Storms, floods, and the science of atmospheric rivers.” EOS Trans. Am. Geophys. Union, 92(32), 265–266.
Richter, B. D., Baumgartner, J. V., Powell, J., and Braun, D. P. (1996). “A Method for assessing hydrologic alteration within ecosystems.” Conservat. Biol., 10(4), 1163–1174.
Rogers, J. D. (2006). “Lessons learned from the St. Francis Dam failure.” Geo-Strata, 6(2), 14–17.
Stedinger, J. R., and Griffis, V. W. (2008). “Flood frequency analysis in the United States: Time to update.” J. Hydrol. Eng., 13(4), 199–204.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). (1991). “Inflow design floods for dams and reservoirs.”, Washington, DC.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). (2005). Stochastic modeling of extreme floods on the American River at Folsom Dam–Flood frequency curve extension, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Hydrologic Engineering Center, Davis, CA.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamations (USBR). (1987). “Design of small dams.” Water Resour. Technical Pub.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamations (USBR). (1999). Hydraulic model study of Folsom Dam spillway performance and stilling basin abrasion, Water Resources Research Laboratory, Denver.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamations (USBR). (2007a). Folsom Dam safety and flood damage reduction (DS/FDR) action, Folsom Joint Federal Project, Washington, DC.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamations (USBR). (2007b). Folsom Lake 2005 Sedimentation Survey, Technical Service Center, Washington, DC.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). “Profile of general population and housing characteristics: 2010, 2010 demographic profile data.” 〈http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=DEC_10_DP_DPDP1〉 (Jan. 15, 2012).
U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA). (2011). “Electricity explained–Electricity in the United States.” 〈http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_states〉 (Jan. 24, 2012).
Woldemichael, A. T., Hossain, F., Pielke, R. A., Sr., and Beltrán-Przekurat, A. (2012). “Understanding the impact of dam-triggered land-use/land-cover change on the modification of extreme precipitation mesoscale meteorological modeling of land- atmosphere interaction for simulation of probable maximum precipitation for artificial reservoirs.” Water Resour. Res., 48(9).
Ymanjaro, C. (2011). “Atmospheric rivers caused the U.K.’s worst floods.” New Scientist, (2838).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18 • Issue 9 • September 2013
Pages: 1180 - 1190
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 26, 2012
Accepted: Sep 26, 2012
Published online: Sep 29, 2012
Discussion open until: Feb 28, 2013
Published in print: Sep 1, 2013
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.