Journal
JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGY
Volume 555, Issue -, Pages 435-446Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.09.008
Keywords
Dams; Regional trends; Northeast United States; Flow regulation; Water security; Water availability
Funding
- City College of New York Department of Civil Engineering
- Grove School of Engineering
- National Science Foundation [1049181]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Observed changes in precipitation patterns, rising surface temperature, increases in frequency and intensity of floods and droughts, widespread melting of ice, and reduced snow cover are some of the documented hydrologic changes associated with global climate change. Climate change is therefore expected to affect the water supply-demand balance in the Northeast United States and challenge existing water management strategies. The hydrological implications of future climate will affect the design capacity and operating characteristics of dams. The vulnerability of water resources systems to floods and droughts will increase, and the trade-offs between reservoir releases to maintain flood control storage, drought resilience, ecological flow, human water demand, and energy production should be reconsidered. We used a Neural Networks based General Reservoir Operation Scheme to estimate the implications of climate change for dams on a regional scale. This dynamic daily reservoir module automatically adapts to changes in climate and re-adjusts the operation of dams based on water storage level, timing, and magnitude of incoming flows. Our findings suggest that the importance of dams in providing water security in the region will increase. We create an indicator of the Effective Degree of Regulation (EDR) by dams on water resources and show that it is expected to increase, particularly during drier months of year, simply as a consequence of projected climate change. The results also indicate that increasing the size and number of dams, in addition to modifying their operations, may become necessary to offset the vulnerabilities of water resources systems to future climate uncertainties. This is the case even without considering the likely increase in future water demand, especially in the most densely populated regions of the Northeast. (C) 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available