Doctoral Dissertation Research: Assessing Factors that Influence Streamflow

该项目将量化影响径流的因素如何随时间和空间变化。河流是工业和生活用水的重要来源。径流量的变化和年内变化给管理带来挑战，并可能造成破坏性的社会和经济后果。因此，有必要研究推动此类变化的潜在机制。该项目将大大提高对水循环的认识，支持开发更有效的水平衡模型，并提供更好的未来水供应预测。该项目将查明面临缺水问题并需要在今后的水管理工作中给予更优先重视的地区。研究结果将分发给地方和区域流域和水资源管理人员。此外，该项目将促进教学和培训，让本科生参与模拟水的可用性，并支持本科生研究助理。揭示影响径流的不同因素的相对重要性是水文学的整体理解所必需的。在了解哪些非气候因素是不同时间尺度上径流变化的最重要因素以及气候和非气候因素的相对重要性如何随时间变化方面存在知识差距。为了解决知识差距，本项目有三个研究问题：（1）气候和非气候驱动因素的相对作用如何随空间和时间变化？(2)哪些非气候因素是最重要的，它们在空间和时间上是如何变化的？(3)在未来的三十年里，河流流量将如何变化？这些问题将使用水平衡模型结合美国大陆大量流域的统计分析来回答。该项目将为适应性流域管理提供信息，并将对水、能源、粮食安全和人类福祉之间的未来互动产生重大影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.