Improving Projections of Hydrology in the Pacific Northwest

Resource managers, policymakers, and scientists require tools to inform water resource management and planning. Information on hydrologic factors – such as streamflow, snowpack, and soil moisture – is important for understanding and predicting wildfire risk, flood activity, and agricultural and rangeland productivity, among others. Existing tools for modeling hydrologic conditions rely on information on temperature and precipitation. This project sought to evaluate different methods for downscaling global climate models – that is, taking information produced at a global scale and making it useable at a regional scale, in order to produce more accurate projections of temperature and precipitation for the Pacific Northwest. The downscaled climate data was then used as input in a hydrologic model, ultimately serving to fine-tune predictions of future hydrologic conditions in the region. The results of this project are a key step toward developing a comprehensive set of scenarios of possible future climate and environmental conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Resource management decisions related to the protection of endangered species, the water supply, and reservoir operation can all benefit from more refined estimates of future hydrologic conditions.