Sensitivity of Streamflow Response in the Snow-Dominated Sierra Nevada Watershed Using Projected CMIP5 Data
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 23, Issue 8
Abstract
The American River basin, a snow-dominated alpine watershed in Northern California, was simulated using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to evaluate change in future streamflow characteristics in response to potential climate change. Seven global climate model (GCM) outputs from Phase Five of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) were used to generate 50-year (2015–2064) future climate scenarios. GCM outputs predict an increase in winter precipitation in the watershed and the maximum and minimum daily temperatures to rise by more than 1°C in the fall and spring. Compared to the baseline scenario (1964–2014), the results showed that increased winter air temperature reduced the amount of snowfall, which eventually decreased the basin average snowmelt runoff by more than 70%. With the increase in winter rainfall, the mean annual streamflow in the basin increases by 6.7%, but peak streamflow shifts from mid-March to early February. Winter flood frequency as well as summer extreme low flow frequency are projected to increase. Therefore, future challenges in the watershed will be to balance the seasonal effects of climate change.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP5 model data, and we thank the climate modeling groups (listed in Table 3 of this paper) for producing and making their model output available. For CMIP, the US Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provided coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. The authors like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support from California State University’s Water Resources and Planning Initiatives (WRPI) and California State University, Long Beach’s Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (RSCA) award, which made this research possible. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their generous and insightful feedback on the manuscript.
References
Abbaspour, K., C. Johnson, and M. van Genuchten. 2004. “Estimating uncertain flow and transport parameters using a sequential uncertainty fitting procedure.” Vadose Zone J. 3 (4): 1340–1352. https://doi.org/10.2136/vzj2004.1340.
Abbaspour, K., M. Vejdani, and S. Haghighat. 2007. “SWATCUP calibration and uncertainty programs for SWAT.” In Proc., Int. Congress on Modelling and Simulation (MODSIM’07), edited by L. Oxley and D. Kulasiri, 1603–1609. Melbourne, Australia: Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand.
Ahl, R. S., S. W. Woods, and H. R. Zuuring. 2008. “Hydrologic calibration and validation of SWAT in a snow-dominated rocky mountain watershed, Montana, USA.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 44 (6): 1411–1430. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2008.00233.x.
Arnold, J., R. Srinivasan, R. Muttiah, and J. Williams. 1998. “Large area hydrologic modeling and assessment. 1: Model development.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 34 (1): 73–89. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1998.tb05961.x.
Barsugli, J., C. Anderson, J. Smith, and J. M. Vogel. 2009. Options for improving climate modeling to assist water utility planning for climate change. San Francisco, CA: Water Utility Climate Alliance.
Beven, K., and A. Binley. 1992. “The future of distributed models - Model calibration and uncertainty prediction.” Hydrol. Process. 6 (3): 279–298. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.3360060305.
Brekke, L. D., M. D. Dettinger, E. P. Maurer, and M. Anderson. 2008. “Significance of model credibility in estimating climate projection distributions for regional hydroclimatological risk assessments.” Clim. Change 89 (3–4): 371–394. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-007-9388-3.
California Regional Assessment Group. 2002. Preparing for a changing climate: The potential consequences of climate variability and change—California. Washington, DC: US Global Change Research Program.
Cayan, D., M. Tyree, and S. Lacobellis. 2012. Climate change scenarios for the San Francisco region. Sacramento, CA: California Energy Commission’s.
Cayan, D. R., E. P. Maurer, M. D. Dettinger, M. Tyree, and K. Hayhoe. 2008. “Climate change scenarios for the California region.” Supplement, Clim. Change 87 (S1): 21–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-007-9377-6.
CCTAG (Climate Change Technical Advisory Group). 2015. “Perspectives and guidance for climate change analysis.” Accessed February 7, 2016. http://www.water.ca.gov/climatechange/docs/2015/Perspectives_Guidance_Climate_Change_Analysis.pdf.
Coats, R. 2010. “Climate change in the Tahoe basin: Regional trends, impacts and drivers.” Clim. Change 102 (3–4): 435–466. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-010-9828-3.
Coats, R., J. Perez-Losada, G. Schladow, R. Richards, and C. Goldman. 2006. “The warming of Lake Tahoe.” Clim. Change 76 (1–2): 121–148. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-005-9006-1.
Costa-Cabral, M., R. Coats, J. Reuter, J. Riverson, G. Sahoo, G. Schladow, B. Wolfe, S. B. Roy, and L. Chen. 2013a. “Climate variability and change in mountain environments: Some implications for water resources and water quality in the Sierra Nevada (USA).” Clim. Change 116 (1): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0630-2.
Costa-Cabral, M., S. B. Roy, E. P. Maurer, W. B. Mills, and L. Chen. 2013b. “Snowpack and runoff response to climate change in Owens Valley and Mono Lake watersheds.” Clim. Change 116 (1): 97–109. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0529-y.
Das, T., M. D. Dettinger, D. R. Cayan, and H. G. Hidalgo. 2011. “Potential increase in floods in California’s Sierra Nevada under future climate projections.” Supplement, Clim. Change 109 (S1): 71–94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0298-z.
Downscaled CMIP5. 2014. “Downscaled CMIP3 and CMIP5 climate and hydrology projections.” Accessed July 9, 2014. https://gdo-dcp.ucllnl.org/downscaled_cmip_projections/.
Faramarzi, M., K. C. Abbaspour, S. A. Vaghefi, M. R. Farzaneh, A. J. B. Zehnder, R. Srinivasan, and H. Yang. 2013. “Modeling impacts of climate change on freshwater availability in Africa.” J. Hydrol. 480 (Feb): 85–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.12.016.
Ficklin, D. L., Y. Luo, E. Luedeling, and M. Zhang. 2009. “Climate change sensitivity assessment of a highly agricultural watershed using SWAT.” J. Hydrol. 374 (1–2): 16–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.05.016.
Ficklin, D. L., I. T. Stewart, and E. P. Maurer. 2013. “Effects of projected climate change on the hydrology in the Mono Lake Basin, California.” Clim. Change 116 (1): 111–131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0566-6.
Gleick, P. H. et al. 2010. “Climate change and the integrity of science.” Science 328 (5979): 689–690. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.328.5979.689.
Guo, H., Q. Hu, and T. Jiang. 2008. “Annual and seasonal streamflow responses to climate and land-cover changes in the Poyang Lake basin, China.” J. Hydrol. 355 (1–4): 106–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2008.03.020.
Hamlet, A., and D. Lettenmaier. 1999. “Effects of climate change on hydrology and water resources in the Columbia River basin.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 35 (6): 1597–1623. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1999.tb04240.x.
He, Z., Z. Wang, C. J. Suen, and X. Ma. 2013. “Hydrologic sensitivity of the Upper San Joaquin River Watershed in California to climate change scenarios.” Hydrol. Res. 44 (4): 723–736. https://doi.org/10.2166/nh.2012.441.
Huang, G., T. Kadir, and F. Chung. 2012. “Hydrological response to climate warming: The Upper Feather River Watershed.” J. Hydrol. 426–427 (Mar): 138–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.01.034.
Huth, R. 2004. “Sensitivity of local daily temperature change estimates to the selection of downscaling models and predictors.” J. Clim. 17 (3): 640–652. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017%3C0640:SOLDTC%3E2.0.CO;2.
IHA (Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration). 2009. Indicators of hydrologic alteration user’s manual. Version 7.1. Arlington, VA: The Nature Conservancy.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2013. Climate change 2013: The physical science basis: Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, 1535. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Izady, A., K. Davary, A. Alizadeh, A. N. Ziaei, S. Akhavan, A. Alipoor, A. Joodavi, and M. L. Brusseau. 2015. “Groundwater conceptualization and modeling using distributed SWAT-based recharge for the semi-arid agricultural Neishaboor plain, Iran.” Hydrogeol. J. 23 (1): 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10040-014-1219-9.
Jin, J., and N. L. Miller. 2007. “Analysis of the impact of snow on daily weather variability in mountainous regions using MM5.” J. Hydrometeorol. 8 (2): 245–258. https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM565.1.
Jury, M. R. 2016. “Climate influences on upper Limpopo River flow.” Water SA 42 (1): 63–71. https://doi.org/10.4314/wsa.v42i1.08.
Kiparsky, M., B. Joyce, D. Purkey, and C. Young. 2014. “Potential impacts of climate warming on water supply reliability in the Tuolumne and Merced River Basins, California.” PLoS One 9 (1): e84946. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0084946.
Knowles, N., and D. Cayan. 2002. “Potential effects of global warming on the Sacramento/San Joaquin watershed and the San Francisco estuary.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 29 (18): 38-1–38-4. https://doi.org/10.1029/2001GL014339.
Knutti, R. 2008. “Should we believe model predictions of future climate change?” Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A-Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 366 (1885): 4647–4664. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2008.0169.
Koczot, K. M., S. L. Markstrom, and L. E. Hay. 2011. “Effects of baseline conditions on the simulated hydrologic response to projected climate change.” Earth Interact. 15 (27): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1175/2011EI378.1.
Kum, D., K. J. Lim, C. H. Jang, J. Ryu, J. E. Yang, S. J. Kim, D. S. Kong, and Y. Jung. 2014. “Projecting future climate change scenarios using three bias-correction methods.” Adv. Meteorol. 2014: 704151. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/704151.
Lettenmaier, D., A. Wood, R. Palmer, E. Wood, and E. Stakhiv. 1999. “Water resources implications of global warming: A US regional perspective.” Clim. Change 43 (3): 537–579. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005448007910.
Luo, Y., D. L. Ficklin, X. Liu, and M. Zhang. 2013. “Assessment of climate change impacts on hydrology and water quality with a watershed modeling approach.” Sci. Total Environ. 450: 72–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.02.004.
Marks, D., J. Domingo, D. Susong, T. Link, and D. Garen. 1999. “A spatially distributed energy balance model for application in mountain basins.” Hydrol. Process. 13 (12–13): 1935–1959. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1085(199909)13:12/13%3C1935::AID-HYP868%3E3.0.CO;2-C.
Maurer, E. P., H. G. Hidalgo, T. Das, M. D. Dettinger, and D. R. Cayan. 2010. “The utility of daily large-scale climate data in the assessment of climate change impacts on daily streamflow in California.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 14 (6): 1125–1138. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-14-1125-2010.
McCabe, G. J., and D. M. Wolock. 1999. “General-circulation-model simulations of future snowpack in the western United States.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 35 (6): 1473–1484. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1999.tb04231.x.
McSweeney, C. F., R. G. Jones, and B. B. B. Booth. 2012. “Selecting ensemble members to provide regional climate change information.” J. Clim. 25 (20): 7100–7121. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00526.1.
Mehta, D. P., J. H. Viers, and D. Yates. 2009. “Modeling the hydrology of climate change in California’s Sierra Nevada for subwatershed scale adaptation.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 45 (6): 1409–1423. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2009.00375.x.
Mehta, V. K., V. R. Haden, B. A. Joyce, D. R. Purkey, and L. E. Jackson. 2013. “Irrigation demand and supply, given projections of climate and land-use change, in Yolo County, California.” Agric. Water Manage. 117: 70–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2012.10.021.
Mengistu, D. T., and A. Sorteberg. 2012. “Sensitivity of SWAT simulated streamflow to climatic changes within the Eastern Nile River basin.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 16 (2): 391–407. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-16-391-2012.
Miller, N., K. Bashford, and E. Strem. 2003. “Potential impacts of climate change on California hydrology.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 39 (4): 771–784. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2003.tb04404.x.
Miller, N., J. Kim, R. Hartman, and J. Farrara. 1999. “Downscaled climate and streamflow study of the southwestern United States.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 35 (6): 1525–1537. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1999.tb04235.x.
Mohammed, I. N., A. Bomblies, and B. C. Wemple. 2015. “The use of CMIP5 data to simulate climate change impacts on flow regime within the Lake Champlain Basin.” J. Hydrol. Reg. Stud. 3: 160–186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2015.01.002.
Moriasi, D. N., J. G. Arnold, M. W. Van Liew, R. L. Bingner, R. D. Harmel, and T. L. Veith. 2007. “Model evaluation guidelines for systematic quantification of accuracy in watershed simulations.” Trans. ASABE 50 (3): 885–900. https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.23153.
Mote, P., L. Brekke, P. B. Duffy, and E. Maurer. 2011. “Guidelines for constructing climate scenarios.” Eos Trans. Am. Geophys. Union 92 (31): 257–258. https://doi.org/10.1029/2011EO310001.
Neitsch, S. L., J. G. Arnold, J. R. Kiniry, and J. R. Williams. 2005. Soil and water assessment tool theoretical documentation, version 2005. Temple, TX: USDA Agriculture Research Service.
Neitsch, S. L., J. G. Arnold, J. R. Kiniry, and J. R. Williams. 2011. Soil and water assessment tool theoretical documentation version 2009. College Station, TX: Texas Water Resources Institute.
Null, S. E., J. H. Viers, M. L. Deas, S. K. Tanaka, and J. F. Mount. 2013. “Stream temperature sensitivity to climate warming in California’s Sierra Nevada: Impacts to cold water habitat.” Clim. Change 116 (1): 149–170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0459-8.
Pierce, D. W., T. P. Barnett, B. D. Santer, and P. J. Gleckler. 2009. “Selecting global climate models for regional climate change studies.” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 106 (21): 8441–8446. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0900094106.
Pradhanang, S. M., A. Anandhi, R. Mukundan, M. S. Zion, D. C. Pierson, E. M. Schneiderman, A. Matonse, and A. Frei. 2011. “Application of SWAT model to assess snowpack development and streamflow in the Cannonsville watershed, New York, USA.” Hydrol. Process. 25 (21): 3268–3277.
Rahman, K., C. Maringanti, M. Beniston, F. Widmer, K. Abbaspour, and A. Lehmann. 2013. “Streamflow modeling in a highly managed mountainous glacier watershed using SWAT: The Upper Rhone River Watershed Case in Switzerland.” Water Resour. Manage. 27 (2): 323–339. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-012-0188-9.
Richter, B. D., J. V. Baumgartner, J. Powell, and D. P. Braun. 1996. “A method for assessing hydrologic alteration within ecosystems.” Conserv. Biol. 10 (4): 1163–1174. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1523-1739.1996.10041163.x.
Richter, B. D., J. V. Baumgartner, R. Wigington, and D. P. Braun. 1997. “How much water does a river need?” Freshwater Biol. 37 (1): 231–249. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2427.1997.00153.x.
Sahoo, G. B., S. G. Schladow, J. E. Reuter, R. Coats, M. Dettinger, J. Riverson, B. Wolfe, and M. Costa-Cabral. 2013. “The response of Lake Tahoe to climate change.” Clim. Change 116 (1): 71–95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0600-8.
Santhi, C., R. Srinivasan, J. Arnold, and J. Williams. 2006. “A modeling approach to evaluate the impacts of water quality management plans implemented in a watershed in Texas.” Environ. Modell. Software 21 (8): 1141–1157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2005.05.013.
Schmidt, G. A., and C. Tebaldi. 2008. “The uncertainty in climate modeling: A conversation with Claudia Tebaldi, Leonard Smith, and James Murphy.” Bull. At. Sci. In press.
Shamir, E., and K. Georgakakos. 2006. “Distributed snow accumulation and ablation modeling in the American River basin.” Adv. Water Resour. 29 (4): 558–570. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2005.06.010.
Sheshukov, Y., C. B. Siebenmorgen, and K. R. Douglas-Mankin. 2011. “Seasonal and annual impacts of climate change on watershed response using an ensemble of global climate models.” Adv. Water Manage. 54 (6): 2209–2218.
Stewart, I. T. 2013. “Connecting physical watershed characteristics to climate sensitivity for California mountain streams.” Clim. Change 116 (1): 133–148. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0567-5.
Stewart, I. T., D. L. Ficklin, C. A. Carrillo, and R. McIntosh. 2015. “21st century increases in the likelihood of extreme hydrologic conditions for the mountainous basins of the Southwestern United States.” J. Hydrol. 529: 340–353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2015.07.043.
Sultana, R., K. Hsu, J. Li, and S. Sorooshian. 2014. “Evaluating the Utah Energy balance’s (UEB) snow model in the Noah Land-Surface model.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 18 (9): 3553–3570. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-3553-2014.
Taylor, K. E., R. J. Stouffer, and G. A. Meehl. 2012. “An Overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design.” Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 93 (4): 485–498. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00094.1.
US Bureau of Reclamation. 2013. Climate change analysis for the Santa Ana River watershed. Washington, DC: US Bureau of Reclamation.
US Census Bureau. 2011. “Population distribution and change: 2000 to 2010.” Accessed September 24, 2015. http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-01.pdf.
van Griensven, A., T. Meixner, S. Grunwald, T. Bishop, A. Diluzio, and R. Srinivasan. 2006. “A global sensitivity analysis tool for the parameters of multi-variable catchment models.” J. Hydrol. 324 (1–4): 10–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.09.008.
van Vuuren, D. P., et al. 2011. “The representative concentration pathways: An overview.” Clim. Change 109 (1–2): 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0148-z.
Vicuna, S., and J. A. Dracup. 2007. “The evolution of climate change impact studies on hydrology and water resources in California.” Clim. Change 82 (3–4): 327–350. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-006-9207-2.
Vrugt, J., H. Gupta, W. Bouten, and S. Sorooshian. 2003. “A shuffled complex evolution metropolis algorithm for optimization and uncertainty assessment of hydrologic model parameters.” Water Resour. Res. 39 (8): 1201. https://doi.org/10.1029/2002WR001642.
Wang, J., H. Yin, and F. Chung. 2011. “Isolated and integrated effects of sea level rise, seasonal runoff shifts, and annual runoff volume on California’s largest water supply.” J. Hydrol. 405 (1–2): 83–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2011.05.012.
Watanabe, S., S. Kanae, S. Seto, P. J. F. Yeh, Y. Hirabayashi, and T. Oki. 2012. “Intercomparison of bias-correction methods for monthly temperature and precipitation simulated by multiple climate models.” J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 117: D23114. https://doi.org/10.1029/2012JD018192.
Yang, J., P. Reichert, K. C. Abbaspour, J. Xia, and H. Yang. 2008. “Comparing uncertainty analysis techniques for a SWAT application to the Chaohe Basin in China.” J. Hydrol. 358 (1–2): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2008.05.012.
Young, C. A., M. I. Escobar-Arias, M. Fernandes, B. Joyce, M. Kiparsky, J. F. Mount, V. K. Mehta, D. Purkey, J. H. Viers, and D. Yates. 2009. “Modeling the hydrology of climate change in California’s Sierra Nevada for subwatershed scale adaptaion.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 45 (6): 1409–1423. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2009.00375.x.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 23 • Issue 8 • August 2018
Copyright
©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 27, 2016
Accepted: Oct 16, 2017
Published online: May 24, 2018
Published in print: Aug 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Oct 24, 2018
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.