HR: 1340h
AN: H23F-1678    [Abstracts]
TI: Connecting climate, hydrologic and drought predictions to water resources management in Washington State
AU: * Wood, A W
EM: aww@u.washington.edu
AF: University of Washington, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
AU: Shukla, S
EM: shrad@hydro.washington.edu
AF: University of Washington, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
AU: Vano, J
EM: jvano@u.washington.edu
AF: University of Washington, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
AU: Steinemann, A C
EM: acstein@u.washington.edu
AF: University of Washington, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Box 352700, Seattle, WA 98195, United States
AB: Washington State and its prime agricultural region, the Yakima River basin, are both highly dependent on seasonal water supplies, hence the application of improved climate predictions has potential to benefit water management in the basin and the state as a whole. In the Yakima River basin, the US Bureau of Reclamation manages reservoirs to support irrigation, environmental flows, and hydropower production, and the State Department of Ecology helps regulate this water management in times of drought. To strengthen the connection between climate information products and their applications on both the state and river basin levels, we are pursuing a two-pronged approach of developing and applying climate predictions to improve the hydrologic (streamflow) and drought products that are available to decision makers at each level. At the state level, we have implemented a hydrologic monitoring and forecasting system for the state of Washington domain that translates CPC climate predictions into estimates of future hydrologic status (e.g., soil moisture, snowpack, runoff), streamflow and drought conditions. In the Yakima River basin, we are interacting with the water-user community to understand current uses of climate information, assess the accuracy of climate forecasts, evaluate the usefulness of current forecast products, and explore the potential for new, decision-focused climate and streamflow forecast products. This presentation reports on the findings of the work to date.
UR: http://www.hydro.washington.edu/forecast/sarp/index.shtml
DE: 1805 Computational hydrology
DE: 1812 Drought
DE: 1816 Estimation and forecasting
DE: 1866 Soil moisture
DE: 1880 Water management (6334)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting