Managing the Hydrologic Impacts of the Built Environment

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Classic hydrology theory posits that increasing impervious surface areas will lead to larger peak streamflow; however, our preliminary analyses demonstrate the opposite is more likely to occur over the northeastern United States. This leads to three research questions: 1) How are developed basins behaving hydrologically compared to the natural flow regime? and 2) How do hydrologic changes from the built environment impact water resources sustainability and how can they be better managed? 3) How can infrastructure be better managed or designed to mimic the natural hydrologic regime? This research program would take a multi-faceted approach, combining statistical analysis with physically-based hydrologic modeling to answer these questions. Throughout this research, the spatial scale of alterations and the river as well as the river network and climate will be explicitly considered in the analysis to understand if these impact the answers to these three research questions. A big data approach will be used to quantify if developed basins behave differently from natural basins and if so, how. Second, we will perform physically-based model experiments to quantify how far these impacts propagate downstream. The quantified changes in hydrologic regime will then be used in conjunction with water withdrawals and environmental flow requirements to quantify how the human-induced changes impact water resources sustainability, and how water use and ecosystem water needs can be balanced. Finally, infrastructure -- specifically reservoir operations and stormwater management -- will be examined to see if the built environment can better mimic the natural.******There is a fundamental gap in our knowledge: we do not know how the built environment collectively impacts hydrologic regimes. This research will result in innovative statistical models at multiple spatial scales that provide physical insights into how heterogeneous, altered river basins impact the natural environment. The physically-based models will identify locations at risk of unsustainable water resources, accounting for climate and climate change, water use, and reservoirs. The series of model experiments will be able to identify causation of the identified problem areas, and these model runs will be freely disseminated to the scientific community. The knowledge gained during this research will both advance fundamental understanding in the hydrologic sciences and will identify solution spaces for improved stormwater management design and reservoir management. We are increasingly facing pressure on our water resources, having to balance between changing supplies due to climate, increased societal demands both for municipal water and irrigated agriculture, and an increased priority on ensuring environmental flows to sustain the ecosystem. This research will allow us to be posed to make better informed policies and decisions in the coming decades. **