Communities across Massachusetts may face potential consequences of climate change, ranging from more extreme rainfall to more pronounced and frequent droughts. Climate change could alter the state’s hydrology in potentially complex and unanticipated ways. Typical approaches for projecting hydrologic risk under climate change can misrepresent and underestimate the variability of climate and hydrology in the future. This limitation can severely impede risk-based decision-making for watershed and infrastructure management.
As an alternative, this project will apply emerging stochastic modeling tools that minimize future variability, including the development of a Stochastic Watershed Model. This model uses input from a Stochastic Weather Generator that estimates climate variables for future warming scenarios over the State of Massachusetts.
This investigation starts with a Stochastic Weather Generator developed at Cornell University. This tool will simulate precipitation and temperature for selected warming scenarios throughout Massachusetts. Output from the Stochastic Weather Generator will be used to characterize future climate in Massachusetts. Additionally, output from the Stochastic Weather Generator will be used to drive a deterministic rainfall-runoff model, which defines how much runoff is created from a specific amount of rainfall. Finally, a Stochastic Watershed Model, developed at Tuft University, will be applied to correct the biases of the deterministic models at high- and low-flow extremes, which are common with deterministic watershed models. The output from the Stochastic Watershed Model will be used to characterize future hydrology in a pilot watershed. The pilot basin for the hydrologic part of this study is the Squannacook River watershed. A web-based interface will be developed to provide study results.
Objectives:
- Project and disseminate 21st century precipitation and temperature characteristics for the state of Massachusetts.
- Project and disseminate 21st century hydrology characteristics for the Squannacook River watershed.
- Overview
Communities across Massachusetts may face potential consequences of climate change, ranging from more extreme rainfall to more pronounced and frequent droughts. Climate change could alter the state’s hydrology in potentially complex and unanticipated ways. Typical approaches for projecting hydrologic risk under climate change can misrepresent and underestimate the variability of climate and hydrology in the future. This limitation can severely impede risk-based decision-making for watershed and infrastructure management.
As an alternative, this project will apply emerging stochastic modeling tools that minimize future variability, including the development of a Stochastic Watershed Model. This model uses input from a Stochastic Weather Generator that estimates climate variables for future warming scenarios over the State of Massachusetts.
This investigation starts with a Stochastic Weather Generator developed at Cornell University. This tool will simulate precipitation and temperature for selected warming scenarios throughout Massachusetts. Output from the Stochastic Weather Generator will be used to characterize future climate in Massachusetts. Additionally, output from the Stochastic Weather Generator will be used to drive a deterministic rainfall-runoff model, which defines how much runoff is created from a specific amount of rainfall. Finally, a Stochastic Watershed Model, developed at Tuft University, will be applied to correct the biases of the deterministic models at high- and low-flow extremes, which are common with deterministic watershed models. The output from the Stochastic Watershed Model will be used to characterize future hydrology in a pilot watershed. The pilot basin for the hydrologic part of this study is the Squannacook River watershed. A web-based interface will be developed to provide study results.
Objectives:
- Project and disseminate 21st century precipitation and temperature characteristics for the state of Massachusetts.
- Project and disseminate 21st century hydrology characteristics for the Squannacook River watershed.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Climate realizations generated from the Stochastic Weather Generator force the deterministic rainfall runoff (Precipitation Runoff Modeling System) model. The Stochastic Watershed Model then adds variability to the Precipitation Runoff Modeling System output, producing a database of simulated flows. - Partners