Doctoral Dissertation Research: Assessing Factors that Influence Streamflow

Ohio State University, The, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

This project will quantify how factors that influence streamflow change over space and time. Streamflow is an important source of water for industrial and domestic uses. Changes and intra-annual variations in streamflow pose management challenges and may cause devastating societal and economic consequences. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the underlying mechanisms that drive such changes. This project will significantly improve the understanding of the water cycle, support the development of more effective water balance models, and provide improved projections of future water availability. This project will identify areas that face water shortages and require greater priority in future water management efforts. Research findings will be disseminated to local and regional watershed and water resources managers. In addition, the project will promote teaching and training by involving undergraduates in modeling water availability and by supporting an undergraduate research assistant. Unraveling the relative importance of different factors that influence streamflow is essential for a holistic understanding of hydrology. There is a knowledge gap regarding knowing which non-climatic factors are the most important contributors to streamflow variations at various timescales, and how the relative importance of climatic and non-climatic factors varies over time. To address the knowledge gap, this project has three research questions: (1) How does the relative role of climatic and non-climatic drivers change over space and time? (2) What non-climatic factors are the most important and how do they vary over space and time? (3) How will streamflow change in the next thirty years? These questions will be answered using a water balance model combined with statistical analyses across a large number of watersheds in the continental United States. This project will inform adaptive watershed management and will have significant implications for future interactions between water, energy, food security, and human wellbeing. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.