Changes in flood response of the Red River of the North Basin, North Dakota-Minnesota

Miller, Jeffrey E.; Frink, Dale L.

doi:10.3133/ofr82774

Cited by 27 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Precipitation records, lake level elevations, and paleoclimate studies indicate that the basin is prone to extreme climate variability (Fritz et al, 2000;Miller and Frink, 1984). 10…”

Section: Red River Of the North Basin (Rrb)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In general, surface and subsurface drainage projects began during initial agricultural settlement in the late 1800's and early 1900's, when enormous tracts of wetlands and tall grass prairie (millions of acres) were levelled and drained mainly by surface ditches and canals (Miller and Frink, 1984). Most of these initial projects were relatively ineffective 15 (Miller and Frink, 1984).…”

Section: Red River Of the North Basin (Rrb)mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Human amplified changes in precipitation-runoff patterns in large river basins of the Midwestern United States

Kelly¹,

Takbiri²,

Belmont³

et al. 2016

Preprint

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Abstract. Complete transformations of land cover from prairie, wetlands, and hardwood forests to homogenous row crop agriculture scattered with urban centers are thought to have caused profound changes in hydrology in the Upper Midwestern US since the 1800s. Continued intensification of land use and drainage practices combined with increased precipitation have 10 caused many Midwest watersheds to exhibit higher streamflows today than in the historical past. While changes in crop type and farming practices have been well documented over the past few decades, changes in artificial surface (ditch) and subsurface (tile) drainage systems have not. This makes it difficult to quantitatively disentangle the effects of climate change and artificial drainage intensification on the observed hydrologic change, often spurring controversial interpretations with significant implications for management actions. In this study, we investigate four large (23,000-69,000 km 2 ) Midwest river 15 basins that span climate and land use gradients to understand how climate and agricultural drainage have influenced basin hydrology over the last 79 years. We use daily, monthly, and annual flow metrics to document streamflow changes and discuss those changes in the context of climate and land use change. While we detect similar timing of precipitation and streamflow changes in each basin, overall the magnitude and significance of precipitation changes are much less than we detect for streamflows. Of the basins containing greater than 20% area drained by tile and ditches, we observe 2 to 4 fold 20 increases in low flows and 1.5 to 3 fold increases in high and extreme flows. Monthly precipitation has increased slightly for some months in each basin, mostly in fall and winter months (August -March), but total monthly streamflow has increased in all months for the Minnesota River Basin (MRB), every month but April for the Red River Basin (RRB), SeptemberDecember and March in the Illinois River Basin (IRB), and no months in the Chippewa River basin (CRB). Using a water budget, we determined that the soil moisture/groundwater storage term for the intensively drained and cultivated MRB, IRB, 25and RRB, has decreased by about 200%, 100%, and 30%, respectively while increased by roughly 30% in the largely forested CRB since 1975. We argue that agricultural land use change, through wetland removal and artificial drainage installation, has decreased watershed storage and amplified the streamflow response to precipitation increases in the Midwest. Highly managed basins with large reservoirs and urban centers, such as the Illinois River basin (IRB), may be able to buffer some of these impacts better than largely unregulated systems such as the Minnesota River (MRB) and Red River 30

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“…Precipitation records, lake level elevations, and paleoclimate studies indicate that the basin is prone to extreme climate variability (Fritz et al, 2000;Miller and Frink, 1984). 10…”

Section: Red River Of the North Basin (Rrb)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Red River Of the North Basin (Rrb)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Human amplified changes in precipitation-runoff patterns in large river basins of the Midwestern United States

Kelly¹,

Takbiri²,

Belmont³

et al. 2016

Preprint

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show abstract

“…Between 1850 and 1930 Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin lost an estimated 90, 53, and 32 % of state wetlands, respectively (McCorvie and Lant, 1993). Enormous tracts of wetlands and tall grass prairie (millions of acres) were levelled and drained, mainly by surface ditches and canals, in the RRB during this same time (Miller and Frink, 1984). Artificial drainage increased property value, and as corn and soybean commodity prices increased, as they did following WWII, in the mid-1970s, and most recently a tripling of commodity prices between 2002 and 2012 (Glaser, 2016;Johnston, 2013), lands previously cultivated for small grains or left as wet meadows were drained and converted to soybean and corn fields (Blann et al, 2009;Burns, 1954;Wright and Wimberly, 2013).…”

Section: Study Areas: Large River Basins Of the Midwest With Varying mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The RRB is the coldest and driest of all four study basins, although the last 2 decades (1990s and 2000s) have been the wettest in historical times. Precipitation records, lake level elevations, and paleoclimate studies indicate that the basin is prone to extreme climate variability (Fritz et al, 2000;Miller and Frink, 1984). Much like the RRB, the adjacent MRB is uniquely situated at a "climatic triple junction" where warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, cold dry air from the Arctic, and dry Pacific air dominate at different times of the year and have varied in relative dominance in the past (Dean and Schwalb, 2000;Fritz et al, 2000).…”

Section: Study Areas: Large River Basins Of the Midwest With Varying mentioning

confidence: 99%

Human amplified changes in precipitation–runoff patterns in large river basins of the Midwestern United States

Kelly

Takbiri

Belmont

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Complete transformations of land cover from prairie, wetlands, and hardwood forests to row crop agriculture and urban centers are thought to have caused profound changes in hydrology in the Upper Midwestern US since the 1800s. In this study, we investigate four large (23 000-69 000 km 2 ) Midwest river basins that span climate and land use gradients to understand how climate and agricultural drainage have influenced basin hydrology over the last 79 years. We use daily, monthly, and annual flow metrics to document streamflow changes and discuss those changes in the context of precipitation and land use changes. Since 1935, flow, precipitation, artificial drainage extent, and corn and soybean acreage have increased across the region. In extensively drained basins, we observe 2 to 4 fold increases in low flows and 1.5 to 3 fold increases in high and extreme flows. Using a water budget, we determined that the storage term has decreased in intensively drained and cultivated basins by 30-200 % since 1975, but increased by roughly 30 % in the less agricultural basin. Storage has generally decreased during spring and summer months and increased during fall and winter months in all watersheds. Thus, the loss of storage and enhanced hydrologic connectivity and efficiency imparted by artificial agricultural drainage appear to have amplified the streamflow response to precipitation increases in the Midwest. Future increases in precipitation are likely to further intensify drainage practices and increase streamflows. Increased streamflow has implications for flood risk, channel adjustment, and sediment and nutrient transport and presents unique challenges for agriculture and water resource management in the Midwest. Better documentation of existing and future drain tile and ditch installation is needed to further understand the role of climate versus drainage across multiple spatial and temporal scales.

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“…The snow-covered areas are reduced seasonally from 45.2 to 1.9 million km 2 over the lands of the Northern Hemisphere [2]. Consequently, many regions, for example, the Great Plains in U.S. and high-altitude mountain areas of western China, have experienced serious floods as a result of spring snowmelt [4][5][6]. Accurate estimates of snow water equivalent (SWE) are required to improve the capability of flood forecasting as a result of snowmelt, as well as water supply management [7,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Consistency of Snow Water Equivalent Retrievals from Passive Microwave Sensors over the North Central U. S.: SSM/I vs. SSMIS and AMSR-E vs. AMSR2

2017

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For four decades, satellite-based passive microwave sensors have provided valuable snow water equivalent (SWE) monitoring at a global scale. Before continuous long-term SWE records can be used for scientific or applied purposes, consistency of SWE measurements among different sensors is required. SWE retrievals from two passive sensors currently operating, the Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS) and the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2), have not been fully evaluated in comparison to each other and previous instruments. Here, we evaluated consistency between the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) onboard the F13 Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and SSMIS onboard the F17 DMSP, from November 2002 to April 2011 using the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) for continuity. Likewise, we evaluated consistency between AMSR-E and AMSR2 SWE retrievals from November 2007 to April 2016, using SSMIS for continuity. The analysis is conducted for 1176 watersheds in the North Central U.S. with consideration of difference among three snow classifications (Warm forest, Prairie, and Maritime). There are notable SWE differences between the SSM/I and SSMIS sensors in the Warm forest class, likely due to the different interpolation methods for brightness temperature (Tb) between the F13 SSM/I and F17 SSMIS sensors. The SWE differences between AMSR2 and AMSR-E are generally smaller than the differences between SSM/I and SSMIS SWE, based on time series comparisons and yearly mean bias. Finally, the spatial bias patterns between AMSR-E and AMSR2 versus SSMIS indicate sufficient spatial consistency to treat the AMSR-E and AMSR2 datasets as one continuous record. Our results provide useful information on systematic differences between recent satellite-based SWE retrievals and suggest subsequent studies to ensure reconciliation between different sensors in long-term SWE records.

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Changes in flood response of the Red River of the North Basin, North Dakota-Minnesota

Cited by 27 publications

References 8 publications

Human amplified changes in precipitation-runoff patterns in large river basins of the Midwestern United States

Human amplified changes in precipitation-runoff patterns in large river basins of the Midwestern United States

Human amplified changes in precipitation–runoff patterns in large river basins of the Midwestern United States

Evaluating Consistency of Snow Water Equivalent Retrievals from Passive Microwave Sensors over the North Central U. S.: SSM/I vs. SSMIS and AMSR-E vs. AMSR2

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