Concurrently assessing water supply and demand is critical for evaluating vulnerabilities to climate change

Abstract

Aligning water supply with demand is a challenge, particularly in areas with large seasonal variation in precipitation and those dominated by winter precipitation. Climate change is expected to exacerbate this challenge, increasing the need for long-term planning. Long-term projections of water supply and demand that can aid planning are mostly published as agency reports, which are directly relevant to decision-making but less likely to inform future research. We present 20-year water supply and demand projections for the Columbia River, produced in partnership with the Washington State Dept. of Ecology. This effort includes integrated modeling of future surface water supply and agricultural demand by 2040 and analyses of future groundwater trends, residential demand, instream flow deficits, and curtailment. We found that shifting timing in water supply could leave many eastern Washington watersheds unable to meet late-season out-of-stream demands. Increasing agricultural or residential demands in watersheds could exacerbate these late-season vulnerabilities, and curtailments could become more common for rivers with federal or state instream flow rules. Groundwater trends are mostly declining, leaving watersheds more vulnerable to surface water supply or demand changes. Both our modeling framework and agency partnership can serve as an example for other long-term efforts that aim to provide insights for water management in a changing climate elsewhere around the world.