Robyn N. Holmes, A. Mayer, D. Gutzler, Luis Garnica Chavira
{"title":"Assessing the Effects of Climate Change on Middle Rio Grande Surface Water Supplies Using a Simple Water Balance Reservoir Model","authors":"Robyn N. Holmes, A. Mayer, D. Gutzler, Luis Garnica Chavira","doi":"10.1175/ei-d-21-0025.1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nThe Middle Rio Grande is a vital source of water for irrigation in the region. Climate change is impacting regional hydrology and is likely to put additional stress on a water supply that is already stretched thin. To gain insight on the hydrologic effects of climate change on reservoir storage, a simple water balance model was used to simulate the Elephant Butte-Caballo reservoir system (Southern New Mexico, USA). The water balance model was forced by hydrologic inputs generated by 97 climate simulations derived from CMIP5 Global Climate Models, coupled to a surface hydrologic model. Results suggest the percentage of years that reservoir releases satisfy agricultural water rights allocations over the next 50 years (2021-2070) will decrease compared to the past 50 years (1971-2020). The modeling also projects an increase in multi-year drought events that hinder reservoir management strategies to maintain high storage levels. In most cases, changes in reservoir inflows from distant upstream snowmelt is projected to have a greater influence on reservoir storage and water availability downstream of the reservoirs, compared to changes in local evaporation and precipitation from the reservoir surfaces.","PeriodicalId":51020,"journal":{"name":"Earth Interactions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2022-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Earth Interactions","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1175/ei-d-21-0025.1","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"GEOSCIENCES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
The Middle Rio Grande is a vital source of water for irrigation in the region. Climate change is impacting regional hydrology and is likely to put additional stress on a water supply that is already stretched thin. To gain insight on the hydrologic effects of climate change on reservoir storage, a simple water balance model was used to simulate the Elephant Butte-Caballo reservoir system (Southern New Mexico, USA). The water balance model was forced by hydrologic inputs generated by 97 climate simulations derived from CMIP5 Global Climate Models, coupled to a surface hydrologic model. Results suggest the percentage of years that reservoir releases satisfy agricultural water rights allocations over the next 50 years (2021-2070) will decrease compared to the past 50 years (1971-2020). The modeling also projects an increase in multi-year drought events that hinder reservoir management strategies to maintain high storage levels. In most cases, changes in reservoir inflows from distant upstream snowmelt is projected to have a greater influence on reservoir storage and water availability downstream of the reservoirs, compared to changes in local evaporation and precipitation from the reservoir surfaces.
期刊介绍:
Publishes research on the interactions among the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, and lithosphere, including, but not limited to, research on human impacts, such as land cover change, irrigation, dams/reservoirs, urbanization, pollution, and landslides. Earth Interactions is a joint publication of the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, and American Association of Geographers.