Water Management Decisions Using Multiple Hydrologic Models within the San Juan River Basin under Changing Climate Conditions
Publication: Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management
Volume 138, Issue 5
Abstract
A modified version of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) long-term planning model, Colorado River Simulation System (CRSS), is used to evaluate whether hydrologic model choice has an impact on critical decision variables within the San Juan River Basin when evaluating potential effects of climate change through 2099. The distributed variable infiltration capacity (VIC) model and the lumped National Weather Service (NWS) River Forecast System (RFS) were each used to project future streamflow; these projections of streamflow were then used to force Reclamation’s CRSS model over the San Juan River Basin. Both hydrologic models were compared to evaluate whether or not uncertainty in climatic input generated from general circulation models outweighed differences between the hydrologic models. Differences in methodologies employed by each hydrologic model had a significant effect on projected streamflow within the basin. Both models project decreased water availability under changing climate conditions within the San Juan River Basin, but disagree on the magnitude of the decrease. On average, total naturalized inflow within the San Juan River Basin into the Navajo Reservoir is approximately 15% higher using inflows derived using the VIC model than those inflows developed using the RFS model; average projected tributary inflow from the San Juan River Basin to the Colorado River is approximately 25% higher using inflows derived by using the VIC model than those inflows developed by using the RFS. Overall, there is a higher risk and magnitude of shortage within the San Juan River Basin using streamflow developed with the RFS model as compared with inflow scenarios developed by using the VIC model. Model choice was found to have a significant effect on the evaluation of climate change impacts over the San Juan River Basin.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Lower and Upper Colorado Regions for their continued support and funding of this work. Additional information regarding this study, and other Reclamation studies, can be obtained by contacting the corresponding author. The authors also acknowledge the modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and the WCRP’s Working Group on Coupled Modeling (WGCM) for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP3 multi model dataset. Support of this data set is provided by the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy. The authors would also like to thank Andy Wood with the CBRFC for making available the temporally disaggregated BCSD used in the development of this analysis. The research at University of Nevada, Las Vegas is supported by grants NSF EPS-0814372, NOAA NA07AR4310228, DOE DE-FG02-08ER64709, and DOE DE-EE-0000716.
References
Anderson, E. A. (1973). National Weather Service river forecast system: Snow accumulation and ablation model, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, Silver Springs, MD.
Anderson, E. A. (2006). Snow accumulation and ablation model—SNOW-17, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, Silver Springs, MD.
Brekke, L. D., Miller, N. L., Bashford, K. E., Quinn, N. W. T., and Dracup, J. A. (2004). “Climate change impacts uncertainty for water resources in the San Joaquin River Basin, California.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 40(1), 149–164.
Brekke, L., and Prairie, J. (2009). Long-term planning hydrology based on various blends of instrumental records, paleoclimate, and projected climate information, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Denver, CO.
Burnash, R. J., Ferral, R. L., and McGuire, R. A. (1973). “A generalized streamflow simulation system—Conceptual modeling for digital computers.” Technical Report, Joint Federal and State River Forecast Center, U.S. National Weather Service and California Dept. of Water Resources, Sacramento, CA.
Christensen, N. S., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2007). “A multimodel ensemble approach to assessment of climate change impacts on the hydrology and water resources of the Colorado River Basin.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 11(4), 1417–1434.
Christensen, N. S., Wood, A. W., Voisin, N., Lettenmaier, D. P., and Palmer, R. N. (2004). “The effects of climate change on the hydrology and water resources of the Colorado River Basin.” Clim. Change, 62(1–3), 337–363.
Haan, C. T. (1977). Statistical methods in hydrology, 1st Ed., lowa State University Press, Ames, IA.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2000). Special report on emissions scenarios: A special report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Nakićenović, N., and Swart, R., eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Maurer, E. P. (2007). “Uncertainty in hydrologic impacts of climate change in the Sierra Nevada, California, under two emissions scenarios.” Clim. Change, 82(3–4), 309–325.
Maurer, E. P., and Duffy, P. B. (2005). “Uncertainty in projections of streamflow changes due to climate change in California.” Geophys. Res. Lett., 32(3), 1–5.
Maurer, E. P., Wood, A. W., Adam, J. C., Lettenmaier, D. P., and Nijssen, B. (2002). “A long-term hydrologically based dataset of land surface fluxes and states for the conterminous United States.” J. Clim., 15(22), 3237–3251.
Meehl, G. A. et al. (2007). “The WCRP CMIP3 multimodel dataset: A new era in climatic change research.” Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 88(9), 1383–1394.
Miller, W. P., Piechota, T. C., Gangopadhyay, S., and Pruitt, T. (2011). “Development of streamflow projections under changing climate conditions over Colorado River Basin headwaters.” Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 15(7), 2145–2164.
Milly, P. C. D. et al. (2008). “Stationarity is dead: Whither water management?” Science, 319(5863), 573–574.
Nijssen, B., Lettenmaier, D. P., Liang, X., Wetzel, S. W., and Wood, E. F. (1997). “Streamflow simulation for continental-scale river basins.” Water Resour. Res., 33(4), 711–724.
Prairie, J., and Callejo, R. (2005). “Natural flow and salt computation methods, calendar years 1971–1995.” U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Boulder City, NV.
San Juan River Basin Recovery Implementation Program Biology Committee. (1999). Flow recommendations for the San Juan River, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Albuquerque, NM.
Tang, C., and Piechota, T. C. (2009). “Spatial and temporal soil moisture and drought variability in the Upper Colorado River Basin.” J. Hydrol., 379(1–2), 122–135.
Upper Colorado River Commission. (2007). Hydrologic determination 2007: Water availability from Navajo Reservoir and the Upper Colorado River Basin for use in New Mexico, Jackson Hole, WY.
U.S. Dept. of the Interior. (1985). CRSS: Colorado River simulation system, Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado Region, Denver, CO.
U.S. Dept. of the Interior. (1992). CRSS: Colorado River Simulation system. Hydrologic flow and salt data base for the Lower Colorado Region, Lees Ferry to Imperial Dam, Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado Region, Denver, CO.
U.S. Dept. of the Interior. (2006). Final environmental impact statement, Navajo Reservoir operations, Navajo Unit—San Juan River, New Mexico, Colorado Utah, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Upper Colorado Region, Grand Junction—Durango, CO.
U.S. Dept. of the Interior. (2009). Colorado River Basin water supply and demand study, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado Region, Boulder City, NV.
Wood, A. W., Leung, L. R., Sridhar, V., and Lettenmaier, D. P. (2004). “Hydrologic implications of dynamical and statistical approaches to downscaling climate model outputs.” Clim. Change, 62(1–3), 189–216.
Xu, L., Lettenmaier, D. P., Wood, E. F., and Burges, S. J. (1994). “A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models.” J. Geophys. Res., 99(D7), 14415–14428.
Zagona, E. A., Fulp, T. J., Shane, R., Magee, T., and Goranflo, H. M. (2001). “Riverware: A generalized tool for complex reservoir system modeling.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 37(4), 913–929.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 10, 2010
Accepted: Feb 28, 2012
Published online: Mar 3, 2012
Published in print: Sep 1, 2012
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.