Modeling of urban hydrologic processes in the context of climate variability and climate change

拟议的研究旨在解决首要的科学问题：“如何准确预测由气候变率和气候变化引起的城市流域降水，温度和径流过程的变化？”* 为了解决这一关键问题，主要挑战是开发一个“综合气候-城市水文过程建模框架”，该框架可以准确描述全球或区域尺度的气候变量与当地或城市地区的水文过程之间的联系。这就需要制定降尺度程序，将粗分辨率气候模式输出与更精细的空间网格联系起来，如果要评估当地城市进程的变化，甚至需要将其与实际点值联系起来。此外，城市水文建模所需的时间尺度通常不到一天。另一个关键问题是，现有的气候模型目前在提供准确可靠的降水预测方面能力有限，因为这些模型仍然没有充分描述城市地区相关尺度的降水控制过程。因此，为了开发这一综合降尺度框架，拟议的研究方案包括三个主要组成部分：（一）模拟亚日温度过程：将开发一个多变量统计模型，用于模拟气候变化背景下许多地点同时出现的每小时极端温度;（二）模拟亚日降雨过程：（iii）城市径流过程模型：将开发一个决策支持工具，以便在温度和降水模型与城市径流模型之间提供综合联系。该决策支持工具将用于检查径流特性对气候变异性导致的降雨和极端温度变化的敏感性。**预计这项研究的结果将提高我们对气候变异性及其在城市地区的影响的集体认识，将为制定更具成本效益的设计程序和更准确的脆弱性评估方法提供必要的工具，并最终将帮助决策者制定适当的适应战略，以有效管理我们的城市水系统。拟议的研究专门处理的问题，已受到相当大的关注，由于大量的投资参与。例如，气候变化可能会对加拿大的城市供水系统造成压力，导致供水短缺或中断，极端风暴和洪水往往会在城市地区造成严重的重大财产和广泛的经济损失（例如，2013年卡尔加里市和多伦多市最近发生的毁灭性洪水）。

The proposed research aims at the overarching scientific question: “How to predict accurately at the urban basin scale changes in precipitation, temperature, and runoff processes caused by climate variability and climate change?” ******To address this critical question, the main challenge is to develop an “integrated climate-urban hydrologic processes modeling framework” that could accurately describe the linkages between climate variables at global or regional scales and hydrologic processes at a local site or over an urban area. This necessitates the development of downscaling procedures for linking coarse-resolution climate model outputs down to much finer spatial grids, and even virtually point values if changes in local urban processes are to be assessed. Further, the time scales required for urban hydrologic modelling are usually less than one day. Another critical issue is the current limited ability of existing climate models in providing accurate and reliable precipitation projections since these models still do not contain an adequate description of the precipitation governing processes at the relevant scales for urban areas. Hence, to develop this integrated downscaling framework, the proposed research program involves three main components: (i) Modelling of sub-daily temperature processes: a multivariate statistical model will be developed for simulating hourly temperature extremes at many sites concurrently in the context of climate change; (ii) Modelling of sub-daily rainfall processes: stochastic models will be developed for simulating sub-daily rainfall series at a single site as well as at different sites concurrently; and (iii) Modelling of urban runoff process:a decision support tool will be developed to provide an integrated linkage between temperature and precipitation models and urban runoff model. This decision support tool will be used to examine the sensitivity of runoff characteristics to the changes in rainfall and temperature extremes due to climate variability.******It is expected that results of this research will enhance our collective understanding of climate variability and their effects in urban regions, will provide essential tools for developing more cost-effective design procedures and more accurate vulnerability assessment methods, and ultimately will help policy-makers in developing appropriate adaptive strategies for effective management of our urban water systems. The proposed research deals exclusively with issues that have been received considerable attention due substantial investment involved. For instance, climate variability can stress Canada's urban water systems leading to water supply shortages or disruptions, and extreme storms and floods have often caused severe substantial property and extensive economic damages in urban areas (e.g., recent devastating floods in the City of Calgary and in the City of Toronto in 2013).