Extreme hydrological changes in the southwestern US drive reductions in water supply to Southern California by mid century
Abstract
The Southwestern United States has a greater vulnerability to climate change impacts on water security due to a reliance on snowmelt driven imported water. The State of California, which is the most populous and agriculturally productive in the United States, depends on an extensive artificial water storage and conveyance system primarily for irrigated agriculture, municipal and industrial supply and hydropower generation. Here we take an integrative high-resolution ensemble approach to examine near term climate change impacts on all imported and local sources of water supply to Southern California. While annual precipitation is projected to remain the same or slightly increase, rising temperatures result in a shift in precipitation type towards more rainfall, reducing cold season snowpack and earlier snowmelt. Associated with these hydrological changes are substantial increases in both dry and flood event frequency and intensity. On one hand, the greater probability of drought decreases imported water supply availability. On the other hand, earlier snowmelt and significantly stronger winter precipitation events pose increased flood risk requiring water releases from reservoirs for flood control, also potentially decreasing water availability. As a result, lack of timely local water resource expansion coupled with climate change projections and population increases may leave the areamore »
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1325599
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1325600; OSTI ID: 1326510
- Grant/Contract Number:
- 32112413; AC05-00OR22725
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Environmental Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Environmental Research Letters Journal Volume: 11 Journal Issue: 9; Journal ID: ISSN 1748-9326
- Publisher:
- IOP Publishing
- Country of Publication:
- United Kingdom
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Citation Formats
Pagán, Brianna R., Ashfaq, Moetasim, Rastogi, Deeksha, Kendall, Donald R., Kao, Shih-Chieh, Naz, Bibi S., Mei, Rui, and Pal, Jeremy S. Extreme hydrological changes in the southwestern US drive reductions in water supply to Southern California by mid century. United Kingdom: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094026.
Pagán, Brianna R., Ashfaq, Moetasim, Rastogi, Deeksha, Kendall, Donald R., Kao, Shih-Chieh, Naz, Bibi S., Mei, Rui, & Pal, Jeremy S. Extreme hydrological changes in the southwestern US drive reductions in water supply to Southern California by mid century. United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094026
Pagán, Brianna R., Ashfaq, Moetasim, Rastogi, Deeksha, Kendall, Donald R., Kao, Shih-Chieh, Naz, Bibi S., Mei, Rui, and Pal, Jeremy S. Tue .
"Extreme hydrological changes in the southwestern US drive reductions in water supply to Southern California by mid century". United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094026.
@article{osti_1325599,
title = {Extreme hydrological changes in the southwestern US drive reductions in water supply to Southern California by mid century},
author = {Pagán, Brianna R. and Ashfaq, Moetasim and Rastogi, Deeksha and Kendall, Donald R. and Kao, Shih-Chieh and Naz, Bibi S. and Mei, Rui and Pal, Jeremy S.},
abstractNote = {The Southwestern United States has a greater vulnerability to climate change impacts on water security due to a reliance on snowmelt driven imported water. The State of California, which is the most populous and agriculturally productive in the United States, depends on an extensive artificial water storage and conveyance system primarily for irrigated agriculture, municipal and industrial supply and hydropower generation. Here we take an integrative high-resolution ensemble approach to examine near term climate change impacts on all imported and local sources of water supply to Southern California. While annual precipitation is projected to remain the same or slightly increase, rising temperatures result in a shift in precipitation type towards more rainfall, reducing cold season snowpack and earlier snowmelt. Associated with these hydrological changes are substantial increases in both dry and flood event frequency and intensity. On one hand, the greater probability of drought decreases imported water supply availability. On the other hand, earlier snowmelt and significantly stronger winter precipitation events pose increased flood risk requiring water releases from reservoirs for flood control, also potentially decreasing water availability. As a result, lack of timely local water resource expansion coupled with climate change projections and population increases may leave the area in extended periods of shortages.},
doi = {10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094026},
journal = {Environmental Research Letters},
number = 9,
volume = 11,
place = {United Kingdom},
year = {Tue Sep 20 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Tue Sep 20 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094026
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094026
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