California's water resources vary throughout the state owing to the regions varying topography, diverse climate, and the distribution of precipitation. Most of the state's precipitation falls over the northern coastal range and the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Winter snowpack that accumulates within these mountain basins serves as...
Oregon is a state with great social and ecological diversity. Unfortunately however, Oregon's water-rich reputation is more rumor than reality. As with many Western states, Oregon struggles with water scarcity, especially during dry summer months. Recent efforts by the state to develop an integrated water resource strategy (IWRS) to manage...
In many regions of the world, a significant portion of the surface water originates in mountain headwaters where the timing and magnitude of streamflow is largely dictated by the seasonal storage of precipitation as snowpack and long-term storage as glaciers. Accumulation, persistence, and melt of snow and ice are functions...
In the Western United States where 50-70% of annual precipitation comes in the form of winter snowfall, water supplies may be particularly sensitive to a warming climate. We worked with a network of stakeholders in the Big Wood Basin, Idaho, to explore how climate change may affect water resources and...
Throughout many of the world’s mountain ranges snowpack accumulates during the winter and into the spring, providing a natural reservoir for water. As this reservoir melts, it fills streams and recharges groundwater for over 1 billion people globally. Despite its importance to water resources, our understanding of the storage capacity...
Dams and reservoirs are important components of water resource management systems, but their operational sensitivity to streamflow variability may make them vulnerable to climate change. Climate change is likely to affect the magnitude and timing of streamflow, motivating the assessment of potential impacts on dams and reservoirs. Here I examine...