A National Water Network for Future Impacts Analysis

Abstract:

Water availability is driven by both climate and socioeconomic
interactions, and in some cases needs to be studied at a large scale
that spans multiple watersheds. To understand how regions will be
impacted as precipitation and demand patterns shift, this project
builds a national water network for the United States, incorporating
gauges, reservoirs, canals, and their interactions with counties. The
basic structure of the network follows the HydroSHEDS dataset, and
downstream and demand interactions are modeled using all available
monthly data from the USGS GAGES II database. As a diagnostic, we use
the database to study the extent that snowmelt supports downstream
streamflow. Using these models, we can also estimate streamflows
during unrecorded years, expanding the dataset. We then use the
network to develop a model of optimal extraction, and consider a
thought experiment for reallocating U.S. cropland to generate the most
economic benefit for irrigation.