Planning for Change: Challenges and Opportunities in California
Abstract
California needs to address two fundamental challenges due to climate changes related to water resources: (i) The past can no longer effectively predict the future, thereby introducing the decision-making challenge of confidence, risk, and uncertainty, and (ii) Most of the tools, infrastructure, and institutions currently used to manage and make water resources decisions assume conditions that are largely fixed and stable, effectively locking in decisions for decades or longer, consequently generating decisions that may limit flexibility in infrastructure and management over relevant timescales. These challenges require significant transformation of the ways in which water is managed both in terms of approach and scale.
In this presentation, we display the Tuolumne River Watershed Study, which is using HEC-WAT and the Decision Scaling approach to explore and evaluate both challenges. The project explores the system performance to hydrologic changes from flood to drought under the wide range of simulated natural variability and climate perturbed conditions. Then it evaluates potential adaptation opportunities for the watershed linking future hydrologic changes to system performance during extreme events with historic relevance. The project aims to develop and recommend an approach for quantifying deep uncertainties in flood and drought risks, which can be incorporated into Federal, state and local decision-making processes and to help inform future planning projects.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.H11G..03M
- Keywords:
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- 1630 Impacts of global change;
- GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1812 Drought;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1821 Floods;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1880 Water management;
- HYDROLOGY