Water year indices and drought indices are helpful for categorizing water years into similar types, allowing water managers and policymakers to quantify years, visualize variability, and guide water operations. Many water management... more
Water year indices and drought indices are helpful for categorizing water years into similar types, allowing water managers and policymakers to quantify years, visualize variability, and guide water operations. Many water management decisions, such as environmental flow requirements and water supply allocations, are based on water year type designations. They vary by region and index, but are defined by runoff in the current water year compared to average historical runoff, with numerical thresholds categorizing year ...
Climate warming is altering the flow and temperature regimes in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range by reducing snowpack, causing earlier runoff and raising stream temperatures. Managing reservoir releases for downstream... more
Climate warming is altering the flow and temperature regimes in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range by reducing snowpack, causing earlier runoff and raising stream temperatures. Managing reservoir releases for downstream temperatures is a promising adaptation option. In this study, we developed a linear programming model to optimally release water from multiple thermal layers in a seasonally stratified reservoir to minimize deviations from desired downstream temperatures. An explicit objective of the work was to ...
Many water management decisions, such as environmental flow requirements and water supply allocations, are based on categorical water year type designations. Thresholds for water year type designations vary by region and index, but most... more
Many water management decisions, such as environmental flow requirements and water supply allocations, are based on categorical water year type designations. Thresholds for water year type designations vary by region and index, but most are defined by some measure of runoff in the current water year compared to average historical runoff. Climate change is anticipated to alter the timing and volume of runoff, and change the relative frequency of water year types as presently defined. We use California's Sacramento ...
Water temperatures influence the distribution, abundance, and health of aquatic organisms in stream ecosystems. Improving understanding of climate warming on the thermal regime of rivers will help water managers better manage instream... more
Water temperatures influence the distribution, abundance, and health of aquatic organisms in stream ecosystems. Improving understanding of climate warming on the thermal regime of rivers will help water managers better manage instream habitat. This study assesses climate warming impacts on unregulated stream temperatures in California's west-slope Sierra Nevada watersheds from the Feather River to the Kern River. We used unregulated hydrology to isolate climate induced changes from those of water operations ...
We report here on a major effort to define and quantify metrics of vulnerability to climate change for the west-slope of California's Sierra Nevada. We have defined the vulnerability of flowing surface waters used for human and... more
We report here on a major effort to define and quantify metrics of vulnerability to climate change for the west-slope of California's Sierra Nevada. We have defined the vulnerability of flowing surface waters used for human and ecological purposes as a function of exposure and sensitivity to anticipated hydrologic alteration mediated by regional climate warming and as measured by changes in the flow regime. This effort includes the development, parameterization, and calibration of the WEAP21 water management model ...
