The Corps of Engineers operates reservoirs throughout the US and is concerned about the impact of climate change on the performance of those reservoirs. Significant increases in inflows might strain the ability of the reservoir systems to protect lives and property. Significant decreases might strain the ability of the system to provide water for water supply, hydropower, fish and wildlife, and navigation needs.
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We used the Corps' reservoir system analysis tool, HEC-PRM, to evaluate the impact of climate change on reservoir operation in the Columbia and Missouri river systems under various climate change scenarios. Cooperating researchers at two universities used global circulation and macro-scale hydrology models to produce long flow sequences for a set of climate change scenarios that have been postulated. We then estimated water supply, hydropower, fish and wildlife, and flood-control benefits with each.
To synthesize the results, we developed algorithms in Visual Basic so that we could compute and compare the reliability, vulnerability, and resiliency of each scenario, using Microsoft Excel.
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