Sponsor
Partial financial support for this project was provided by the National Science Foundation Cyber-Innovation for Sustainability Science and Engineering (CyberSEES), Grant No. CCF-1539605 and by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) (Grant No. NA140AR4310234).
Published In
Water Research
Document Type
Post-Print
Publication Date
3-1-2019
Subjects
Droughts -- United States, Water -- Dissolved oxygen, Turbidity, Water temperature, Drought relief
Abstract
Hydrological droughts have considerable negative impacts on water quantity and quality, and understanding their regional characteristics is of crucial importance. This study presents a multi-stage framework to detect and characterize hydrological droughts considering both streamflow and water quality changes. Hydrological droughts are categorized into three stages of growth, persistence, retreat, and water quality variables (i.e., water temperature, dissolved oxygen concentration, and turbidity) are utilized to further investigate drought recovery. The framework is applied to 400 streamflow gauges across the Contiguous United States (CONUS) over the study period of 1950–2016. The method is illustrated for the 2012 US drought, which affected most of the nation. Results reveal the duration, frequency, and severity of historical droughts in various regions as well as their spatial consistencies and heterogeneities. Furthermore, duration of each stage of drought (i.e., growth, persistence, and retreat) is also assessed and the spatial patterns are diagnosed across the CONUS. Considering the water quality variables, increased water temperature (4 °C on average) and reduced dissolved oxygen concentration (2.5 mg/L on average) were observed during drought episodes, both of which impose severe consequences on ecology of natural habitats. On the contrary, turbidity was found to decrease during droughts, and indicate a sudden increase when drought terminates, due to increase in runoff. Varied drought recovery durations are perceived for different water quality variables, and in general, it takes about two more months for water quality variables to recover from a drought, following the hydrological drought termination.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1016/j.watres.2018.11.052
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/30360
Citation Details
Published as: Ahmadi, B., Ali Ahmadalipour, & Hamid Moradkhani. (2019). Hydrological drought persistence and recovery over the CONUS: A multi-stage framework considering water quantity and quality. Water Research, 150, 97–110.
Description
© 2019. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/