Human influence

Van Loon, Anne F.; Wanders, Niko; Bloomfield, John P.; Fendeková, Miriam; Ngongondo, Cosmo; Van Lanen, Henny A.J.

doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-819082-1.00007-2

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 61 publications

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“…Human water use, land management practices, and infrastructure alter drought events by changing the volume, timing, and distribution of regional water resource availability (Van Loon et al, 2024;Wanders & Wada, 2015). The West Slope Basins are part of the institutionally complex UCRB system, which is governed by the Prior Appropriation doctrine leading to a nested set of rules and regulations dictating water rights, reservoir operations, and environmental flows (US Bureau of Reclamation, 2012a; CWCB, 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Spatially Compounding Multi-sectoral Drought Vulnerabilities in Colorado's West Slope River Basins

Gold,

Reed,

Gupta

2024

Preprint

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The state of Colorado’s West Slope Basins are critical headwaters of the Colorado River and play a vital role in supporting Colorado’s local economy and natural environment. However, balancing the multi-sectoral water demands in the West Slope Basins is an increasing challenge for water managers. Internal variability - irreducible uncertainty stemming from interactions across non-linear processes within the hydroclimate system - complicates future vulnerability assessments. Climate change may exacerbate drought vulnerability in the West Slope Basins, with significant streamflow declines possible by mid-century. In this work, we introduce a novel multi-site Hidden Markov Model (HMM)-based synthetic streamflow generator to create an ensemble of streamflows for all six West Slope Basins that better characterizes the region’s hydroclimate and drought extremes. We capture the effects of climate change by perturbing the HMM to generate a climate-adjusted ensemble of streamflows that reflects plausible changes in climate. We then route both ensembles of streamflows through StateMod, the state of Colorado’s water allocation model, to evaluate spatially compounding drought impacts across the West Slope basins. Our results illustrate how drought events emerging from the system’s stationary internal variability in the absence of climate change can have significant impacts that exceed extreme conditions in the historical record. Further, we find that even relatively modest levels of plausible climate changes can cause a regime shift where extreme drought impacts become routine. These results can inform future Colorado River planning efforts, and our methodology can be expanded to other snow-dominated regions that face persistent droughts.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the Spatially Compounding Multi-sectoral Drought Vulnerabilities in Colorado's West Slope River Basins

Gold,

Reed,

Gupta

2024

Preprint

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Dynamic evolution of meteorological and hydrological droughts under climatic and anthropogenic pressures in water‐scarce regions

Singh,

Solanki,

Sharma

2024

Hydrological Processes

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Climate change and anthropogenic influences amplify drought complexity, entangle non‐stationarity (NS) and further challenge drought comprehension. This study aims to understand the dynamic evolution of drought propagation patterns due to climatic and anthropogenic pressures by assessing the non‐stationary linkages between hydrological variables and drought characteristics. It employs four standardized drought indicators to comprehensively examine the spatio‐temporal evolution of meteorological (MD) and hydrological (HD) drought characteristics. Data from 29 semi‐arid catchments from six river basins in Peninsular India, are analyzed to uncover distinct drought propagation patterns. This study utilizes a novel Non‐overlapping Block‐stratified Random Sampling (NBRS) approach to detect NS in drought characteristics and hydrological variables, shedding light on the underlying drivers of this dynamic behavior. The results indicate similarities in drought behavior for the Sabarmati, Mahi and Tapi (SMT) basins compared with the Godavari, Krishna and Pennar (GKP) basins, with shorter (longer) propagation times noted for SMT (GKP) basins. While HD severity decreases over time in SMT basins, it intensifies in GKP basins, which are linked to intensive anthropogenic interventions such as river regulation and reservoir operations, thus resulting in prolonged and intensified droughts. Rainfall primarily exhibits time‐invariance, while significant NS is observed in potential evapotranspiration (particularly in the Krishna and Pennar basins), streamflow and baseflow across all basins. The study also identified three distinct drought propagation patterns in these basins, highlighting cases where MD did not transition to HD, instances of HD occurring without preceding MD and synchronous propagation of MD to HD. The study outcomes provide profound insights into the evolution of drought dynamics under climatic and anthropogenic pressures, which will aid policymakers and stakeholders in formulating strategies for drought preparedness and response.

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Exploring the Spatially Compounding Multi‐Sectoral Drought Vulnerabilities in Colorado's West Slope River Basins

Gold,

Gupta,

Reed

2024

Earth's Future

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The state of Colorado's West Slope Basins are critical headwaters of the Colorado River and play a vital role in supporting Colorado's local economy and natural environment. However, balancing the multi‐sectoral water demands in the West Slope Basins while maintaining crucial downstream deliveries to Lake Powell is an increasing challenge for water managers. Internal variability of the hydroclimatic system and climate change complicate future vulnerability assessments. This work contributes a detailed accounting of multi‐sectoral drought vulnerability in the West Slope Basins and the impacts of drought on downstream deliveries. We first introduce a novel multi‐site Hidden Markov Model (HMM)‐based synthetic streamflow generator to create an ensemble of streamflows for all West Slope basins that better characterizes the region's drought extremes. We capture the effects of climate change by perturbing the HMM to generate an ensemble of streamflows reflecting plausible changes in climate. We then route both ensembles through StateMod, Colorado's water allocation model, to evaluate spatially compounding drought impacts across the West Slope Basins. Our results illustrate how drought events emerging from the system's stationary internal variability in the absence of climate change can significantly impact local water uses and deliveries to Lake Powell, exceeding extreme conditions in the historical record. Further, we find that even modest climate change can cause a regime shift where historically low downstream delivery volumes and extreme drought impacts become routine. These results can inform future Colorado River planning efforts, and our methodology can be expanded to other snow‐dominated regions that face persistent droughts.

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Human influence

Cited by 3 publications

References 61 publications

Exploring the Spatially Compounding Multi-sectoral Drought Vulnerabilities in Colorado's West Slope River Basins

Exploring the Spatially Compounding Multi-sectoral Drought Vulnerabilities in Colorado's West Slope River Basins

Dynamic evolution of meteorological and hydrological droughts under climatic and anthropogenic pressures in water‐scarce regions

Exploring the Spatially Compounding Multi‐Sectoral Drought Vulnerabilities in Colorado's West Slope River Basins

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