Research

This project aims to build water system resilience by increasing understanding of the impacts of persistent low streamflows on water systems that rely on surface water sources.

Wildfires create hazards for lives and property through combustion and high temperatures, as well as their impacts to catchment source water. This project focuses on these water-related vulnerabilities, which include far-reaching effects on flood risks (Ebel et al., 2012), on aquatic habitats, and on water treatment costs (Hohner et al., 2019; Pitlick and Van Steeter, 1998).

Wildfire is a critical vulnerability for water systems in the Intermountain West, particularly those with intakes located in or downstream of forested areas. This project seeks to increase our understanding of the status of water system resilience in the context of changing wildfire risk. It will make key advances by explicitly quantifying the role of fine-scale, spatially distributed snowpack in wildfire risk/resilience under a range of historical precipitation/temperature conditions, as a way to anticipate future wildfire risks under climate change scenarios. The critical advances in scale will support the use of finer land surface/ecological classifications in wildfire risk assessments of future climate projections.

In this project, we will engage with water providers, tribal representatives, agricultural and other water users, ecological interests, and recreational groups about future snowpack and streamflow conditions, increasing understanding of how they view water system resilience to compound hazards. This continued engagement is essential both to disseminate new research findings and to understand evolving information and planning landscapes.

This project supports water system resilience through use-inspired research that helps providers prepare for vulnerabilities due to seasonal water supply prediction errors. We will make meaningful advances in the understanding of existing water supply forecast vulnerabilities and identifying realistic potential adaptations for water systems.