Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Model Output Tabular Summaries for Central Valley Water and Land Use Futures: Land Use Change, Flooded Area, and Flooded Habitat Change

September 22, 2021

To support coordinated conservation, wetland restoration, and climate adaptation planning, we have developed five future scenarios of the Central Valley's seasonally flooded cropland and wetland waterbird habitat based on the State's most recent climate and land use projections (Wilson et al. 2021).The USGS Western Geographic Science Center and Point Blue Conservation Science modeled a Business-as-Usual scenario plus the four scenarios developed for the Central Valley Landscape Conservation Project, which diverged along two key themes: water availability and management for conservation. Scenarios varied by climate projection (hot and wet vs. warm and dry) and management priorities (wetland restoration rate, crop conversion rate, and prioritization of water for wetland and cropland habitats). Urbanization rates were the same for all scenarios. To model these scenarios, we integrated a hydrologic and water-use model (the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model, WEAP-CVwh, Matchett and Fleskes, 2017) with a land change model (the Land Use and Carbon Scenario Simulator, LUCAS, Wilson et al. 2020). The models produced annual maps of land use change and monthly maps of flooded habitat probability at 270-meter resolution, from 2011 to 2101 (Wilson et al. 2021). The scenarios were: Historical Business As Usual (HBAU) = historical water availability, historical management California Dreamin' (DREAM) = high water, good management Bad Business As Usual (BBAU) = high water, poor management Everyone Equally Miserable (EEM) = low water, good management Central Valley Dustbowl (DUST) = low water, poor management This data release contains three types of model output tabular summaries for four geographic areas: WEAP model zones, Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) California Bulletin 118 groundwater sub-basins, Central Valley Joint Venture (CVJV) planning basins, and Central Valley regions. The datasets summarize 1) land use change for select land use/land cover classes, 2) area of likely flooded habitat, and 3) change in January flooded habitat area and its causes for the 5 future scenarios of managed waterbird habitat. The datasets were generated from the LUCAS model and the WEAP CVwh model as described in the parent manuscript. The full methods and results of this research are described in detail in the parent manuscript "Integrated modeling of climate and land change impacts on future dynamic wetland habitat - a case study from California's Central Valley" (2021). These tabular summaries provide the underlying data behind the figures in the ESRI Story Map: Central Valley Water and Land Use Futures, https://wim.usgs.gov/geonarrative/centralvalleyfutures/ (Moritsch et al. 2021). Citations: Matchett EL, Fleskes JP (2017) Projected Impacts of Climate, Urbanization, Water Management, and Wetland Restoration on Waterbird Habitat in California's Central Valley. PLOS ONE 12(1): e0169780. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169780 Moritsch, M., Z. Dighans and K.B. Byrd. 2021. Central Valley Water and Land Use Futures. An ESRI Story Map. https://wim.usgs.gov/geonarrative/centralvalleyfutures/ Wilson TS, Van Schmidt ND, and Langridge R (2020) Land-Use Change and Future Water Demand in California's Central Coast LAND 9, no. 9: 322. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9090322 Wilson TS, E. Matchett, K.B. Byrd, E. Conlisk, M.E. Reiter, C. Wallace, L.E. Flint, A.L. Flint, B. Joyce and M.M. Moritsch (2021) Integrated modeling of climate and land change impacts on future dynamic waterbird habitat - a case study from California's Central Valley. Landscape Ecology in review.

Publication Year 2021
Title Model Output Tabular Summaries for Central Valley Water and Land Use Futures: Land Use Change, Flooded Area, and Flooded Habitat Change
DOI 10.5066/P925AITK
Authors Kristin B Byrd
Product Type Data Release
Record Source USGS Digital Object Identifier Catalog
USGS Organization Western Geographic Science Center - Main Office