Editor’s choice
Editor’s choice
Watersheds of the Cosumnes, American, Bear and Yuba (CABY) rivers in the Sierra Nevada, California, are managed with a complex network of reservoirs, dams, hydropower plants and water conveyances. While water transfers are based on priorities among competing demands, hydropower generation is licensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and regulated by federal and state laws and multi-party agreements.
This paper presents an integrated river basin management (IRBM) model for the CABY region, built to evaluate management and regional climate change scenarios using the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) system. The authors simulated potential impacts of climate warming on hydrology and hydropower production by imposing a fixed increase of temperature (+2, 4 and 6°C) over weekly historical (1981-2000) climate, with all other climate variables unchanged.
Results demonstrate that climate warming will reduce hydropower generation if operational rules remain unchanged, making the case for climate change-induced hydrological change as a foreseeable future condition to be included in the FERC licensing process. IRBM tools such as the CABY model presented here could be useful in deliberations.
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Journal article / This journal article proposes better hydroclimate forecasts for informing water allocating decisions in the state of California.
Journal article / This article investigates the use of different algorithms to predict cottonwood growth around river banks and its implications in river conservation.
Journal article / This article studies the use of machine learning on predicting the growth and health of vegetation around riverbanks.
