Accounting for Adaptive Water Supply Management When Quantifying Climate and Land Cover Change Vulnerability

Climate and land cover change strongly shape water resources management, but understanding their joint impacts is extremely challenging. Consequently, there is limited research of their integrated effects on water supply systems, and even fewer studies that rigorously account for infrastructure inve...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water resources research 2020-01, Vol.56 (1), p.n/a
Main Authors: Gorelick, D. E., Lin, L., Zeff, H. B., Kim, Y., Vose, J. M., Coulston, J. W., Wear, D. N., Band, L. E., Reed, P. M., Characklis, G. W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptive management
Adaptive systems
Availability
climate
Climate and land use
Climate change
Climate models
Decision making
finance
Hydrology
Inflow
Infrastructure
Investment
Land cover
Land use
management
Outflow
Reliability engineering
Resource management
Temperature
Vulnerability
water
Water availability
Water conservation
Water conveyance
Water management
Water resources
Water resources management
Water shortages
Water supply
Water supply systems
Water use
Water utilities
Watersheds
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Climate and land cover change strongly shape water resources management, but understanding their joint impacts is extremely challenging. Consequently, there is limited research of their integrated effects on water supply systems, and even fewer studies that rigorously account for infrastructure investment and management interventions. We utilize ecohydrologic modeling to generate watershed outflows under scenarios of climate and land cover change, which in turn drive modeled water utility‐level decision making for the Research Triangle region of North Carolina. In the Triangle region, land cover and climate change are both likely to increase water supply availability (reservoir inflows) individually and in tandem. However, improvements from water supply increases are not uniform across management system performance indicators of reliability, conservation implementation frequency (i.e., water use restrictions), and infrastructure investment. Utility decisions influence the impact of hydrologic change through both short‐term (e.g., use restrictions and water transfers) and longer‐term infrastructure investment actions, in some cases offsetting the beneficial effects of additional water supply. Timing and sequencing of infrastructure development are strongly sensitive to climate and land use change as captured by their impacts on utility performance outcomes. This work underscores the need to consider adaptive management system responses and decision‐relevant performance measures when determining the impacts of hydrologic change on water availability. Key Points Utility‐scale decision making influences the impact of climate and land use change on both short‐ and long‐term outcomes Timing and sequencing of infrastructure development is highly sensitive to hydrologic change as captured by utility performance indicators Impacts of hydrologic change are not uniform across performance indicators, utilities, or time, owing to management actions
ISSN:0043-1397
1944-7973
DOI:10.1029/2019WR025614