Investigating the Reservoir Response for the Antecedent Conditions related to Extreme Flood Events under Climate Non-Stationarity

Abstract:

Understanding the effect of climate variability in terms of reservoir management can be challenging as they rely on stringent operation policies based on the stationary assumption from the likelihood of historical stream-flow extremes. With changing climate, the characteristics of the stream-flow extremes are changing and so is the hydro-logic antecedent conditions (e.g., snow water equivalent, soil moisture, evaporation) which are responsible for altering the response of the water systems in general. Furthermore, with increase in temperature, the hydro-logic cycle is expected to be more intense causing more extreme precipitation events. More intensified glacier melting is projected due to warming and changing in the timing/rate of melting snow might be responsible to alter the seasonality of stream-flow (e.g., spring discharge is predicted to increase and summer discharge is expected to decrease). Therefore, a proper attention is needed to understand the dynamics of temperature trends, precipitation characteristics, snow-pack accumulation, and other hydro-logic variables under climate change scenarios for long-term reservoir management. This study aims to investigate the reservoir response for the altering characteristics of hydro-logic antecedent variables of water systems under changed climate scenarios. The results will demonstrate the confidence gained in reservoir risk characterization for long-term simulation, as well as improvements in understanding the potential changes of antecedent hydro-logic condition variables under climate uncertainty.