H41D-0855:
Weekly Hydrometeorological Signatures – Characterization of Urban-Induced Streamflow and Rainfall Variability

Thursday, 18 December 2014
Spencer Schnier, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL, United States, Ximing Cai, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, United States and Murugesu Sivapalan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL, United States
Abstract:
About half of all humans alive today live in cities, with that number projected to grow to 70% by 2050. Because most people live in cities, urban streamflow patterns and precipitation events have a large impact on the global population. Urban environments can alter natural streamflow and precipitation patterns in a localized area. This study introduces a novel way to characterize this interference: the weekly hydrometeorological signature. Daily streamflow and precipitation data is collected from USGS gages around three climatically-different major American cities: Chicago, Los Angeles, and Charlotte. The following hypothesis is tested: a persistent weekly pattern (Monday through Sunday) exists in the hydrometeorological data which is unique to each city. All three cities appear to exhibit a persistent weekly pattern which is unique to that city for various climatological, industrial, and topographic reasons. Further study is needed; however these findings have important implications for understanding urban weather and can serve as a unique identifier, or fingerprint, for human interference to local streamflow and precipitation patterns.