Impacts of Near-term Climate Change on Surface Water - Groundwater Availability in the Nueces River basin, TX

Abstract:

In arid and semi-arid regions, sustainability of surface water and groundwater resources is highly uncertain in the face of climate change as well as under competing demands due to urbanization, population growth and water needs to support ecosystem services. Most studies on climate change impact assessment focus on either surface water or groundwater resources alone. In this study, we utilize a fully coupled surface water and groundwater model, Penn-State Integrated Hydrologic Model (PIHM), and recent climate change projections from Climate Models Inter-comparison Project-5 (CMIP5) to evaluate impacts of near-term climate change on water availability in the Nueces River basin, TX. After performing calibration and validation of PIHM over multiple sites, hindcast simulations will be performed over the 1981-2010 period using data from multiple General Circulation Models (GCMs) obtained from the CMIP5 Project. The results will be compared to the observed data to understand added utility of hindcasts in improving the estimation of surface water and groundwater resources. Finally, we will assess the impacts of climate change on both surface water and groundwater resources over the next 20-30 years, which is a relevant time period for water management decisions.