Interactions between Climate Change and Complex Topography Drive Observed Streamflow Changes in the Colorado River Basin

Solander, Kurt C.; Bennett, Katrina E.; Fleming, Sean W.; Gutzler, David S.; Hopkins, Emily M.; Middleton, Richard S.

doi:10.1175/JHM-D-18-0012.1

Title: Interactions between Climate Change and Complex Topography Drive Observed Streamflow Changes in the Colorado River Basin

Abstract

Abstract The Colorado River basin (CRB) is one of the most important watersheds for energy, water, and food security in the United States. CRB water supports 15% of U.S. food production, more than 50 GW of electricity capacity, and one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. Energy–water–food nexus impacts from climate change are projected to increase in the CRB. These include a higher incidence of extreme events, widespread snow-to-rain regime shifts, and a higher frequency and magnitude of climate-driven disturbances. Here, we empirically show how the historical annual streamflow maximum and hydrograph centroid timing relate to temperature, precipitation, and snow. In addition, we show how these hydroclimatic relationships vary with elevation and how the elevation dependence has changed over this historical observational record. We find temperature and precipitation have a relatively weak relation (|r| < 0.3) to interannual variations in streamflow timing and extremes at low elevations (<1500 m), but a relatively strong relation (|r| > 0.5) at high elevations (>2300 m) where more snow occurs in the CRB. The threshold elevation where this relationship is strongest (|r| > 0.5) is moving uphill at a rate of up to 4.8 m yr−1 (p = 0.11) and 6.1more »« less

Authors:

Solander, Kurt C. ^[1]; Bennett, Katrina E. ^[1]; Fleming, Sean W. ^[2]; Gutzler, David S. ^[3]; Hopkins, Emily M. ^[1]; Middleton, Richard S. ^[1]

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico
White Rabbit R&D LLC, and Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, and University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Publication Date:: Fri Oct 19 00:00:00 EDT 2018

Research Org.:: Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE; LANL Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program

OSTI Identifier:: 1580197

Alternate Identifier(s):: OSTI ID: 1511224

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-17-27512
Journal ID: ISSN 1525-755X

Grant/Contract Number:: 20150397DR; 89233218CNA000001

Resource Type:: Published Article

Journal Name:: Journal of Hydrometeorology

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Name: Journal of Hydrometeorology Journal Volume: 19 Journal Issue: 10; Journal ID: ISSN 1525-755X

Publisher:: American Meteorological Society

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; climate change; hydrology; hydrometeorology; regression analysis; time series; climate variability

Citation Formats


                    Solander, Kurt C., Bennett, Katrina E., Fleming, Sean W., Gutzler, David S., Hopkins, Emily M., and Middleton, Richard S. Interactions between Climate Change and Complex Topography Drive Observed Streamflow Changes in the Colorado River Basin.  United States: N. p., 2018. 
Web.  doi:10.1175/JHM-D-18-0012.1.

Copy to clipboard


                    Solander, Kurt C., Bennett, Katrina E., Fleming, Sean W., Gutzler, David S., Hopkins, Emily M., & Middleton, Richard S. Interactions between Climate Change and Complex Topography Drive Observed Streamflow Changes in the Colorado River Basin.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-18-0012.1

Copy to clipboard


                    Solander, Kurt C., Bennett, Katrina E., Fleming, Sean W., Gutzler, David S., Hopkins, Emily M., and Middleton, Richard S. Fri .  
"Interactions between Climate Change and Complex Topography Drive Observed Streamflow Changes in the Colorado River Basin".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-18-0012.1.

Copy to clipboard


                    
@article{osti_1580197,

  title        = {Interactions between Climate Change and Complex Topography Drive Observed Streamflow Changes in the Colorado River Basin},

  author       = {Solander, Kurt C. and Bennett, Katrina E. and Fleming, Sean W. and Gutzler, David S. and Hopkins, Emily M. and Middleton, Richard S.},

  abstractNote = {Abstract The Colorado River basin (CRB) is one of the most important watersheds for energy, water, and food security in the United States. CRB water supports 15% of U.S. food production, more than 50 GW of electricity capacity, and one of the fastest growing populations in the United States. Energy–water–food nexus impacts from climate change are projected to increase in the CRB. These include a higher incidence of extreme events, widespread snow-to-rain regime shifts, and a higher frequency and magnitude of climate-driven disturbances. Here, we empirically show how the historical annual streamflow maximum and hydrograph centroid timing relate to temperature, precipitation, and snow. In addition, we show how these hydroclimatic relationships vary with elevation and how the elevation dependence has changed over this historical observational record. We find temperature and precipitation have a relatively weak relation (|r| < 0.3) to interannual variations in streamflow timing and extremes at low elevations (<1500 m), but a relatively strong relation (|r| > 0.5) at high elevations (>2300 m) where more snow occurs in the CRB. The threshold elevation where this relationship is strongest (|r| > 0.5) is moving uphill at a rate of up to 4.8 m yr−1 (p = 0.11) and 6.1 m yr−1 (p = 0.01) for temperature and precipitation, respectively. Based on these findings, we hypothesize where warming and precipitation-related streamflow changes are likely to be most severe using a watershed-scale vulnerability map to prioritize areas for further research and to inform energy, water, and food resource management in the CRB.},

  doi          = {10.1175/JHM-D-18-0012.1},

  journal      = {Journal of Hydrometeorology},

  number       = 10,

  volume       = 19,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Fri Oct 19 00:00:00 EDT 2018},

  month        = {Fri Oct 19 00:00:00 EDT 2018}

}

Copy to clipboard

Journal Article:

Free Publicly Available Full Text

Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-18-0012.1

Other availability

Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal

Citation Metrics:

Cited by: 2 works

Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Figures / Tables:

Figure 1: Map of the Colorado River Basin showing the streamflow gages that were used in the analysis with corresponding record length of 30-years (1985-2014), 40-years (1975-2014), 50- years (1965-2014) and 60-years (1955-2014). White borders show boundaries of HUC-4 watersheds located within the basin.

All figures and tables (5 total)

Save / Share:

Export Metadata

Save to My Library

Figures / Tables found in this record:

Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.

Similar Records in DOE PAGES and OSTI.GOV collections:

Estimating hydrologic vulnerabilities to climate change using simulated historical data: A proof-of-concept for a rapid assessment algorithm in the Colorado River Basin

Journal Article Solander, Kurt C. ; Bennett, Katrina E. ; Fleming, Sean W. ; ... - Journal of Hydrology. Regional Studies

Study focus: Future climate impacts on streamflow are of critical concern due to its importance for water and energy supplies. However, rigorous studies of such impacts involve complicated modeling chains that can be time-consuming and costly to implement. We examine an alternative approach by developing a method to predict the 21st century peak March-May (MAM) streamflow response to warming from historical data alone, specifically, past observations of the Snow-to-Precipitation ratio divided by basin Area (SPA). Study region: Using the Colorado River Basin (CRB) as a proving ground, we test this empirical relationship over 23 basins ranging in size from 9728more »« less
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2019.100642
Shifts in historical streamflow extremes in the Colorado River Basin

Journal Article Solander, Kurt C. ; Bennett, Katrina Eleanor ; Middleton, Richard Stephen - Journal of Hydrology. Regional Studies

The global phenomenon of climate change-induced shifts in precipitation leading to "wet regions getting wetter" and "dry regions getting drier" has been widely studied. However, the propagation of these changes in atmospheric moisture within stream channels is not a direct relationship due to differences in the timing of how changing precipitation patterns interact with various land surfaces. Streamflow is of particular interest in the Colorado River Basin (CRB) due to the region’s rapidly growing population, projected temperature increases that are expected to be higher than elsewhere in the contiguous United States, and subsequent climate-driven disturbances including drought, vegetation mortality, andmore »« less
Cited by 16
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2017.05.004

Full Text Available
Peatland hydrology across scale: a probabilistic framework for confronting variability, heterogeneity, and uncertainty (Final Report)

Technical Report Feng, Xue ; Ng, Gene-Hua Crystal ; Sebestyen, Stephen

Our project aimed to guide the representations of peatland hydrology and water-carbon feedbacks within Earth System Models, by improving process understanding and developing parsimonious models that elucidate the effects of hydroclimatic variability and spatial heterogeneity. Our research questions centered on the three key drivers of peatland hydrology: (1) seasonal and interannual hydroclimatic fluctuations, (2) spatial heterogeneity of peatland microtopography, and (3) hydrological connectivity across landscape units within a peatland watershed. Our analyses and model testing used existing long-term datasets within the Marcell Experimental Forest (MEF), with new data collected whenever necessary. To date, we have demonstrated the strong influence ofmore »« less
https://doi.org/10.2172/2047108

Full Text Available
Quantifying Dam-Induced Fluctuations in Streamflow Frequencies Across the Colorado River Basin

Journal Article Hwang, Jeongwoo ; Kumar, Hemant ; Ruhi, Albert ; ... - Water Resources Research

Abstract Periodic fluctuations in natural streamflow are a major driver of river ecosystem dynamics and water resource management. However, most U.S. rivers are impacted both by long‐term hydroclimatic trends and dams that alter flow variability. Despite these impacts, it remains largely unexplored how dams affect the dominant frequencies of natural streamflow over a highly regulated river network. We investigated the entire Colorado River Basin (CRB) to understand how the annual (10–14 months) and multi‐annual (24–60 months) frequencies in natural flow regimes have been progressively altered by dams. Given the significant alteration over the CRB, we captured changes in streamflow frequencies between naturalizedmore »« less
https://doi.org/10.1029/2021wr029753

Full Text Available
Recent streamflow trends across permafrost basins of North America

Journal Article Bennett, Katrina E. ; Schwenk, Jon ; Bachand, Claire ; ... - Frontiers in Water

Introduction Climate change impacts, including changing temperatures, precipitation, and vegetation, are widely anticipated to cause major shifts to the permafrost with resulting impacts to hydro-ecosystems across the high latitudes of the globe. However, it is challenging to examine streamflow shifts in these regions owing to a paucity of data, discontinuity of records, and other issues related to data consistency and accuracy. Methods Recent trends for long-term periods (1990–2021, 1976–2021) in observed minimum, mean, and maximum seasonal and annual streamflow were analyzed for a range of watersheds across North America affected by varying degrees of permafrost coverage. Results Streamflow trend analysismore »« less
https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2023.1099660

Similar Records