Potential Climate Change Impacts on Streamflow and Recharge in Two Watersheds on the New Jersey Coastal Plain
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 22, Issue 6
Abstract
Climate change impacts on streamflow and groundwater recharge were evaluated for two nearby watersheds, each with different development pressures and land-use patterns. Dynamically downscaled daily climate projections from a multimodel ensemble were used to drive rainfall-runoff simulations with a distributed hydrologic model. A total of 13 general circulation models (GCMs) with three different emission scenarios were used to analyze the potential impacts of streamflow and recharge in two basins in southern New Jersey. Both basins showed similar responses of streamflow to climate change with increased low flows (95% exceedance). Average annual recharge in the Batsto River basin increased by 5% by 2065, but recharge in the Maurice River basin did not increase based on simulation results. The response of groundwater recharge recharge in the summer was similar in both basins, with simulations indicating a 10–20% increase. It seems likely that different patterns of land use change, population growth, and subsequent changes in water demand will result in different responses to climate change in these basins despite their proximity. In particular, development in the Maurice basin, the need for new stormwater infrastructure, and upgrades to existing infrastructure suggest taking steps towards maximizing retention and groundwater recharge.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
Funding for this work was provided by the New Jersey Water Resources Research Institute FY2014 Program Project ID 2014NJ350B (USGS Grant Number G11AP20094). Funding was obtained while I was an assistant professor in Civil Engineering at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. Some of the work done on this project was done with the help of Rowan University students in engineering clinics; so thanks to Christopher Seigel, Ashley Bechtold, Nicholas Pytlowany, Michael McCarthy, Kevin Varghese, John Tucci, and Collin Spurgin. I would also like to thank Roland Viger (for his help pulling the data bin for PRMS) and three anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous draft of this paper.
I acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and I thank the climate modeling groups (listed in Table 2 of this paper) for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals.
References
Cauller, S. J., and Carleton, G. B. (2006). “Hydrogeology and simulated effects of ground-water withdrawals, Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer system, upper maurice river basin area.” USGS New Jersey Water Science Center, NJ, 2005–5258.
Charles, E. G., and Nicholson, R. S. (2012). “Simulation of groundwater flow and hydrologic effects of groundwater withdrawals from the kirkwood-cohansey aquifer system in the Pinelands of southern.”, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations, Lawrenceville, NJ.
Chen, J., Brissette, F. P., Poulin, A., and Leconte, R. (2011). “Overall uncertainty study of the hydrological impacts of climate change for a Canadian watershed.” Water Resour. Res., 47(12).
Dams, J., Nossent, J., Senbeta, T. B., Willems, P., and Batelaan, O. (2015). “Multi-model approach to assess the impact of climate change on runoff.” J. Hydrol., 529(Part 3), 1601–1616.
Daraio, J. A., and Bales, J. D. (2014). “Effects of land use and climate change on stream temperature. I: Daily flow and stream temperature projections.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 50(5), 1155–1176.
Evans, T. (2011). “Census data show population growth has slowed across.” ⟨http://www.njfuture.org/2011/12/01/population-growth/⟩ (Nov. 2, 2012).
Fuka, D. R., Walter, M. T., Archibald, J. A., Steenhuis, T. S., and Easton, Z. M. (2014). “EcoHydRology: A community modeling foundation for eco-hydrology. R package version 0.4.12.” ⟨https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/EcoHydRology/index.html⟩ (Jan. 6, 2017).
Guinard, K., Mailhot, A., and Caya, D. (2014). “Projected changes in characteristics of precipitation spatial structures over North America.” Int. J. Climatol., 35(4), 596–612.
Hay, L. E., Leavesly, G. H., Clark, M. P., Markstrom, S. L., Viger, R. J., and Umemoto, M. (2006). “Step wise, multiple objective calibration of a hydrologic model for a snowmelt dominated basin.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 42(4), 877–890.
Hay, L. E., Markstrom, S. L., and Ward-Garrison, C. (2011). “Watershed-scale response to climate change through the twenty-first century for selected basins across the United States.” Earth Interact., 15(17), 1–37.
Hay, L. E., and Umemoto, M. (2007). “Multiple-objective stepwise calibration using Luca.”, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA.
Jung, I.-W., Moradkhani, H., and Chang, H. (2012). “Uncertainty assessment of climate change impacts for hydrologically distinct river basins.” J. Hydrol., 466, 73–87.
Lacombe, P. J., and Rosman, R. (1995). “Hydrology of the unconfined aquifer system in the upper Maurice River basin and adjacent areas in Gloucester county, 1986-87.”, U.S. Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations, NJ.
LaFontaine, J. H., Hay, L. E., Viger, R. J., Regan, R. S., and Markstrom, S. L. (2015). “Effects of climate and land cover on hydrology in the southeastern U.S.: Potential impacts on watershed planning.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 51(5), 1235–1261.
Leavesly, G. H., Hay, L. E., Viger, R. J., and Markstrom, S. L. (2003). “Use of apriori parameter-estimation methods to constrain calibration of distributed-parameter models.” Calibration watershed models, Q. Duan, H. V. Gupta, S. Sorooshian, A. N. Rousseau, and R. Turcotte, eds., American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC, 255–266.
Leavesly, G. H., Markstrom, S. L., and Viger, R. J. (2006). “USGS modular modeling system (MMS)–precipitation-runoff modeling system (PRMS).” Watershed models, V. P. Singh and D. K. Frevert, eds., Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton, FL, 159–178.
Liu, H.-H. (2011). “Impact of climate change on groundwater recharge in dry areas: An ecohydrology approach.” J. Hydrol., 407(1–4), 175–183.
Maloney, E. D., et al. (2014). “North American climate in CMIP5 experiments. Part III: Assessment of twenty-first-century projections.” J. Clim., 27(6), 2230–2270.
Markstrom, S. L., Regan, R. S., Hay, L. E., and Viger, R. J. (2015). “PRMS-IV, the precipitation-runoff modeling system, version 4.” U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods, Reston, VA, 158.
Maurer, E. P., Brekke, L., Pruitt, T., and Duffy, P. B. (2007). “Fine-resolution climate projections enhance regional climate change impact studies.” Eos Trans. AGU, 88(47), 504.
Maurer, E. P., Wood, A. W., Adam, J. C., Lettenmaier, D. P., and Nijssen, B. (2002). “A long-term hydrologically-based data set of land surface fluxes and states for the conterminous United States.” J. Clim., 15(22), 3237–3251.
McCabe, G. J., and Wolock, D. M. (2011). “Independent effects of temperature and precipitation on modeled runoff in the conterminous United States.” Water Resour. Res., 47(11), W11522.
Mendoza, P. A., et al. (2016). “How do hydrologic modeling decisions affect the portrayal of climate change impacts?” Hydrol. Processes, 30(7), 1071–1095.
Mizukami, N., et al. (2016). “Implications of the methodological choices for hydrologic portrayals of climate change over the contiguous United States: Statistically downscaled forcing data and hydrologic models.” J. Hydrometeorol., 17(1), 73–98.
Neelin, J. D. (2011). Climate change and climate modeling, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
New Jersey Geologic and Water Survey. (2016). “Digital geodata series DGS02-3 ground-water recharge for New Jersey.” ⟨http://www.state.nj.us/dep/njgs/geodata/dgs02-3.htm⟩ (Sep. 22, 2016).
NJDLWD (New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development). (2013). “Population and labor force projections.” ⟨http://www.wnjpin.state.nj.us/⟩ (Dec. 4, 2015).
NJPC (New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife). (2015). “The Pinelands National Reserve.” ⟨http://www.nj.gov/pinelands/reserve/⟩ (Jan. 4, 2016).
Pope, D. A., Carleton, G. B., Buxton, D. E., and Walker, R. L. (2012). “Simulated effects of alternative withdrawal strategies on groundwater flow in the unconfined kirkwood-cohansey aquifer system, the rio grande water–bearing zone, and the atlantic city 800-foot sand in the great egg harbor and mullica river basins.”, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations, Lawrenceville, NJ.
PRISM Climate Group. (2004). “PRISM gridded climate data.” ⟨http://prism.oregonstate.edu⟩ (Feb. 4, 2004).
Sheffield, J., et al. (2013a). “North American climate in CMIP5 experiments. Part I: Evaluation of historical simulations of continental and regional climatology.” J. Clima, 26(23), 9209–9245.
Sheffield, J., Camargo, S. J., Fu, R., Hu, Q., and Jiang, X. (2013b). “North American climate in CMIP5 experiments. Part II: Evaluation of historical simulations of intraseasonal to decadal variability.” J. Clim., 26(23), 9247–9290.
Shuster, W. D., Bonta, J., Thurston, H., Warnemuende, E., and Smith, D. R. (2005). “Impacts of impervious surface on watershed hydrology: A review.” Urban Water J., 2(4), 263–275.
Snook, I. P., Domber, S. D., and Hoffman, J. L. (2013). “Computer workbook summarizing new jersey withdrawals and discharges on a huc11 basis, 1990-2009.” New Jersey Geological and Water Survey Digital Geological Data Series DGS 13-1, Trenton, NJ.
Spitz, F. J., and Vincent, T. (2008). “Recovery of ground-water levels from 1988 to 2003 and analysis of effects of 2003 and full-allocation withdrawals in critical Area 2.”, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations, Lawrenceville, NJ.
Sun, G., Caldwell, P. V., and McNulty, S. G. (2015). “Modelling the potential role of forest thinning in maintaining water supplies under a changing climate across the conterminous United States.” Hydrol. Processes, 29(24), 5016–5030.
Taylor, K. E., Stouffer, R. J., and Meehl, G. A. (2012). “An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design.” Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 93(4), 485–498.
Teutschbein, C., Grabs, T., Karlsen, R. H., Laudon, H., and Bishop, K. (2015). “Hydrological response to changing climate conditions: Spatial streamflow variability in the boreal region.” Water Resour. Res., 51(12), 9425–9446.
Thornton, P. E., et al. (2016). “Daymet: Daily surface weather data on a 1-km grid for North America, version 3.”, ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge, TN.
USGS. (1996). “U.S. geological survey programs.”, U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet, NJ.
Vaze, J., Post, D. A., Chiew, F. H. S., Perraud, J. M., Viney, N. R., and Teng, J. (2010). “Climate non-stationarity-validity of calibrated rainfall-runoff models for use in climate change studies.” J. Hydrol., 394(3–4), 447–457.
Viger, R. J. (2008). An overview of the GIS weasel, U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet, Denver.
Viger, R. J., Hay, L. E., Jones, J. W., and Buell, G. R. (2010). “Effects of including surface depressions in the application of the precipitation-runoff modeling system in the upper flint river basin.”, Georgia USGS, GA.
Viger, R. J., Hay, L. E., Markstrom, S. L., Jones, J. W., and Buell, G. R. (2011). “Hydrologic effects of urbanization and climate change on the flint river basin.” Earth Interact., 15(20), 1–25.
Walker, R. L., Nicholson, R. S., and Storck, D. A. (2011). “Hydrologic assessment of three drainage basins in the Pinelands of southern New Jersey, 2004–06.”, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations, Lawrenceville, NJ.
Willems, P., Arnbjerg-Nielsen, K., Olsson, J., and Nguyen, V. T. V. (2012). “Climate change impact assessment on urban rainfall extremes and urban drainage: Methods and shortcomings.” Atmos. Res., 103(C), 106–118.
Yang, Q., Tian, H., Friedrichs, M. A. M., Liu, M., Li, X., and Yang, J. (2014). “Hydrological responses to climate and land-use changes along the North American east coast: A 110-year historical reconstruction.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 51(1), 47–67.
Zambrano-Bigiarini, M. (2014). “Hydrogof: Goodness-of-fit functions for comparison of simulated and observed hydrological time series.” ⟨https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/hydroGOF/index.html⟩ (Jan. 6, 2017).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 22 • Issue 6 • June 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 1, 2016
Accepted: Nov 10, 2016
Published online: Feb 14, 2017
Published in print: Jun 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Jul 14, 2017
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.