Hydrological resilience of a Canadian Rockies headwaters basin subject to changing climate, extreme weather, and forest management

Harder, Phillip; Pomeroy, John W.; Westbrook, Cherie J.

doi:10.1002/hyp.10596

Cited by 92 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…The mountains range in elevation from 1600 to 2800 m, and typical mountain environments include montane and subalpine forest cover, alpine tundra, and talus/rock at higher elevation. The climate is characterized by cool, wet summers and long, cold winters; monthly mean air temperature ranges from −10.7 • C in January to 11.7 • C in July (Pomeroy et al, 2012;Fang et al, 2013;Harder et al, 2015). There is a significant difference in the annual precipitation from 638 mm at the valley bottom to 1100 mm at higher elevations (Storr, 1967).…”

Section: Sites and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Bias corrections of precipitation measurements across experimental sites in different ecoclimatic regions of western Canada

Xiong

Yang

et al. 2016

The Cryosphere

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Abstract. This study assesses a filtering procedure on accumulating precipitation gauge measurements and quantifies the effects of bias corrections for wind-induced undercatch across four ecoclimatic regions in western Canada, including the permafrost regions of the subarctic, the Western Cordillera, the boreal forest, and the prairies. The bias corrections increased monthly precipitation by up to 163 % at windy sites with short vegetation and sometimes modified the seasonal precipitation regime, whereas the increases were less than 13 % at sites shielded by forest. On a yearly basis, the increase of total precipitation ranged from 8 to 20 mm (3-4 %) at sites shielded by vegetation and 60 to 384 mm (about 15-34 %) at open sites. In addition, the bias corrections altered the seasonal precipitation patterns at some windy sites with high snow percentage ( > 50 %). This study highlights the need for and importance of precipitation bias corrections at both research sites and operational networks for water balance assessment and the validation of global/regional climate-hydrology models.

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Section: Sites and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Bias corrections of precipitation measurements across experimental sites in different ecoclimatic regions of western Canada

Xiong

Yang

et al. 2016

The Cryosphere

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“…Conversely, in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, Marmot Creek, AB, has shown considerable resilience in its flow regime. Despite winter warming, declining low-elevation snowpacks, forest cover reduction, and, more recently, extreme weather, streamflow volume, timing, and magnitude of peak have not changed since 1962 (Harder et al, 2015). An increase in the fraction of precipitation occurring in spring and the frequency of multiple-day rainfall events may have counteracted warmer conditions and lower snowpacks at low elevations.…”

Section: Insights On Change From the Wecc Observatoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent climatic, cryospheric, and hydrological changes over the interior of western Canada: a review and synthesis

DeBeer

Wheater

Carey

et al. 2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

105

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Abstract. It is well established that the Earth's climate system has warmed significantly over the past several decades, and in association there have been widespread changes in various other Earth system components. This has been especially prevalent in the cold regions of the northern midto high latitudes. Examples of these changes can be found within the western and northern interior of Canada, a region that exemplifies the scientific and societal issues faced in many other similar parts of the world, and where impacts have global-scale consequences. This region has been the geographic focus of a large amount of previous research on changing climatic, cryospheric, and hydrological regimes in recent decades, while current initiatives such as the Changing Cold Regions Network (CCRN) introduced in this review seek to further develop the understanding and diagnosis of this change and hence improve the capacity to predict future change. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the observed changes in various Earth system components and a concise and up-to-date regional picture of some of the temporal trends over the interior of western Canada since the mid-or late 20th century. The focus is on air temperature, precipitation, seasonal snow cover, mountain glaciers, permafrost, freshwater ice cover, and river discharge. Important long-term observational networks and data sets are described, and qualitative linkages among the changing components are highlighted. Increases in air temperature are the most notable changes within the domain, rising on average 2 • C throughout the western interior since 1950. This increase in air temperature is associated with hydrologically important changes to precipitation regimes and unambiguous declines in snow cover depth, persistence, and spatial extent. Consequences of warming air temperatures have caused mountain glaciers to recede at all latitudes, permafrost to thaw at its southern limit, and active layers over permafrost to thicken. Despite these changes, integrated effects on stream flow are complex and often offsetting. Following a review of the current literature, we provide insight from a network of northern research catchments and other sites detailing how climate change confounds hydrological responses at smaller scales, and we recommend several priority research areas that will be a focus of continued work in CCRN. Given the complex interactions and process responses to climate change, it is argued that further conceptual understanding and quantitative diagnosis of the mechanisms of change over a range of scales is required before projections of future change can be made with confidence.

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“…These results are consistent with increased snow accumulation in the clearings and varying melt rates with more prolonged melt for smaller clearings, particularly those facing north ). These differences did not translate into detectable impacts at the Marmot Creek basin scale (Harder et al 2015).…”

Section: Variables Measured (2004-2016)mentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Later analyses of the pre-and post-treatment streamflow by Harder et al (2015) showed that after treatment, there was a trend for earlier and more variable streamflow and decreased peak flow at Cabin Creek, and less variable flow at Twin Creek when compared to the Middle Creek control. These results are consistent with increased snow accumulation in the clearings and varying melt rates with more prolonged melt for smaller clearings, particularly those facing north ).…”

Section: Variables Measured (2004-2016)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Climate change impacts and resiliency were examined by Harder et al (2015) in a study surveying the entire observational record of Marmot Creek. The 52 years of observations showed increases in low elevation air temperature, multiple day and spring precipitation, interannual variability of precipitation, and high elevation groundwater levels.…”

Section: Research Studies 2004-2013mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Marmot Creek Experimental Watershed Study

Rothwell

Hillman

Pomeroy

2016

The Forestry Chronicle

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The origins and results of the scientific experiments in Marmot Creek Experimental Watershed, now the Marmot Creek Research Basin, over more than 50 years are reviewed. Marmot Creek was established to better understand how forest manipulations could be used to manage streamflow hydrographs and was actively manipulated in the 1970s and 1980s. While small forest clearings were shown to increase snow accumulation consistently, the impacts on melt rates depended on clearing size, slope and aspect. As a result, clearing treatments whether through large cutblocks or small clearings had modest impacts on the hydrograph timing and variability and only local impacts on streamflow volume. Changes in climate are primarily manifested as warming which has substantially reduced snowpacks at low elevations. These climate changes have not been evident in hydrograph change and there is no trend to volumes or timing of streamflow over the last 50 years. Overall the basin shows remarkable resiliency to climate and land use change due to its wide range of elevations, slopes, snow environments and sub-surface storage. The basin has become a hydrological process observatory where multi-scale models are developed and evaluated for operation over larger areas. It has served an invaluable role for this and the scientific results from Marmot Creek have supported the development of global climate models and hydrological models that are now applied throughout the world. RÉSUMÉCet article passe en revue les origines et les résultats de quelque 50 années de travaux de recherche effectués dans le bassin versant expérimental de Marmot Creek, appelé maintenant Bassin de recherche Marmot Creek. Marmot Creek a été créé afin de mieux comprendre comment utiliser les interventions forestières pour gérer les hydrogrammes de débit et a subi plusieurs interventions dans les années 1970 et 1980. Même s'il est connu que les petites éclaircies forestières augmentent systématiquement l'accumulation de la neige, leur effet sur la vitesse de fonte dépendait de la superficie de l' éclaircie, de sa pente et de sa forme. Les traitements par éclaircie, qu'ils prennent la forme de grands blocs ou de petites troués, n' ont donc eu qu'un effet limité sur la chronologie et la variabilité des hydrogrammes du débit et un effet localisé sur son volume. Ces modifications du climat se sont principalement manifestées par un réchauffement qui réduit considérablement l'accumulation de neige sur les terrains peu élevés. Ces changements du climat ne se traduisent pas par des changements dans les hydrogrammes et il n'y a pas de tendance manifeste dans les volumes ou la chronologie de l' écoulement au cours des 50 dernières années. Dans son ensemble, le site démontre une résilience remarquable aux changements de climat et d'utilisation du territoire en raison de sa vaste gamme d'altitudes, de pentes, d' environnements neigeux et de réserves souterraines. Le site est devenu un observatoire des processus hydrologiques servant à concevoir et évaluer des modèles multiéchell...

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Hydrological resilience of a Canadian Rockies headwaters basin subject to changing climate, extreme weather, and forest management

Cited by 92 publications

References 59 publications

Bias corrections of precipitation measurements across experimental sites in different ecoclimatic regions of western Canada

Bias corrections of precipitation measurements across experimental sites in different ecoclimatic regions of western Canada

Recent climatic, cryospheric, and hydrological changes over the interior of western Canada: a review and synthesis

Marmot Creek Experimental Watershed Study

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