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Climate Change and Water Availability Models

Climate Change and Water Availability Models. Incorporation of Climate Change in Water Availability Modeling by: Wurbs, RA. Applying climate change predictions Clark Siler 6 Dec 2007. Physical Climatology Class Presentation University of Texas at Austin. Freshwater Demand is Increasing.

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Climate Change and Water Availability Models

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  1. Climate Change and Water Availability Models Incorporation of Climate Change in Water Availability Modeling by: Wurbs, RA Applying climate change predictions Clark Siler 6 Dec 2007 Physical Climatology Class Presentation University of Texas at Austin

  2. Freshwater Demand is Increasing • Increases in Population • Urbanization • Increasing Wealth • Aquifer Depletion • Pollution • Climate Change

  3. Water Availability in Texas • Drought of 1996 • Widespread drought where decision-makers had no information on water availability • Senate Bill 1, “Water Bill” • Passed in response to drought • Water Rights Analysis Package (WRAP) • Texas’ official water availability model

  4. Water Rights Analysis Package Origin and Use Suite of programs to digitally model and manage water rights in Texas Developed by Dr. Ralph Wurbs of the Texas Water Resources Institute at Texas A&M Created ~20 years ago, but gained increased use after Senate Bill 1 (1997) Official Water Availability Model of Texas

  5. WRAP Process

  6. Climate Change and Water Availability Models Naturalized Flows ?

  7. Naturalized Flows • WRAP is Based on Naturalized Flows • NF naturalized flow • GF gaged flow • D water supply diversions upstream • RF return flow upstream • EP reservoir evaporation minus precipitation • DS change in storage in upstream reservoirs • Used to predict reliabilities (water availability) NF = GF +SDi – SRFi + SEPi + SDSi EP DS D RF GF NF

  8. WRAP and Climate Change WRAP cannot directly model climate change WRAP inputs can be modified to reflect climate change modeled predictions

  9. Modeling Climate Change Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful. George Box, industrial statistician • Models Used in Main Paper: • Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) • Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis GCM (CCCma)

  10. Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) • Inputs: • Precipitation • Max/Min Temperature • Land Use • Soils • Land Management • Topography • Hydrogeology • Weather • Hydrologic Unit Model of the United States (HUMUS): • Relative Humidity • Solar Radiation • Wind Speed SWAT is a watershed modeling tool • Output: • Daily Streamflow http://www.brc.tamus.edu/swat/

  11. Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis GCM (CCCma) • Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean Dynamics Model • Inputs include: • Output includes precipitation and max/min temperature • Includes climate-change scenario, IS92a, which employs CO2 increase of 1% per year • Not a toy model • CCCma predictions are relatively high compared to other models • Aggressive climate change model • Is this preferable in this case? http://www.cccma.bc.ec.gc.ca/ • specific humidity • precipitation • soil moisture • cloud cover • moist convection • radiative heating • CO2 concentration • sea level pressure • global mean surface temperature • ocean circulation • sea ice / snow • seasonally frozen soil moisture

  12. Combining Models • Uncertainty may be introduced when combining a global and basin-scale model

  13. Climate Change and WRAP • Precipitation and temperature modeled results for 2040-2060 are retrieved from the CCCma GCM results: one set reflecting climate change, one without climate change. • GCM modeled data is used to alter SWAT input which is used as a representation of 2050 climate. • SWAT uses this data along with historical data to produce sets of daily streamflow values. These are used to adjust WRAP inputs of naturalized flows (and reservoir evaporation). • WRAP is run with historical and climate changed data. Results are used to assess possible future water availability. CCCma Output Input Output Input WRAP Output Future Water Availability

  14. Conclusion • Climate change analyses introduce additional uncertainties to the highly stochastic water resources environment • WRAP can be used to model future climate changed water availability • Can analyze various climate change scenarios • Similar processes can be executed to use any combination of compatible climate models Physical Climatology Class Presentation University of Texas at Austin Physical Climatology Class Presentation University of Texas at Austin

  15. Clark SilerGraduate StudentUniversity of Texas at Austin Geospatial Hydrology Water ResourcesCRWRBS – Brigham Young University Civil Engineeringclarksiler@mail.utexas.edu Personal Information Nov 2007

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