Development of Monthly Water Budget Estimates for the CONUS and Application to the Mississippi Alluvial Plain
Tuesday, December 5, 2017: 11:20 a.m.
101 C (Music City Center)
Meredith Reitz
,
National Research Program - Eastern Branch, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA
Ward E. Sanford
,
U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA
Gabriel Senay
,
EROS Data Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Ft Collins, CO
Wade Kress
,
Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Nashville, TN
David Ladd
,
Lower Mississippi - Gulf Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Nashville, TN
As water resources become increasingly strained in the US and globally, the development of reliable methods of water availability estimation becomes ever more critical for making informed water use management decisions. Here we present new monthly 1km-resolution estimates of the set of water budget components of evapotranspiration (ET), surface runoff, snow storage, and recharge for the modern time period of 2000-2013. We use a combination of remote sensing products and empirical estimates from ground-based data, to leverage both the spatial/temporal resolution of remote sensing and the overall magnitude checks from field data. For ET we use a combination of the MODIS-based USGS SSEBop data set and long-term ET magnitude estimates based on water balance data. We estimate runoff with an empirical regression against soil and surficial geology data, and use the SNODAS snow water equivalent product of the National Snow and Ice Data Center to incorporate snow storage. Recharge and groundwater storage change are then estimated as the balance of the precipitation for the month. After presenting the methods and CONUS-scale maps, we show an application of this work to understanding water availability in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain region, which has seen significant impacts on water resources due to irrigation and groundwater pumping. Our monthly timescale estimates are compared with results from other methods, and synthesized into a summary of water budget trends in the region.
Meredith Reitz, National Research Program - Eastern Branch, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA
Dr. Meredith Reitz received a B.S. in Physics from Arizona State, and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania, where her thesis research focused primarily on rivers and landscape evolution. She then received a postdoctoral fellowship to work at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for two years. She has been with the USGS in Reston, Virginia since August 2014, where she works primarily on developing estimates of evapotranspiration, recharge, and surface runoff using a variety of remote sensing and ground-based data sources.
Ward E. Sanford, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA
Dr. Sanford conducts research on regional groundwater flow and transport at the USGS in Reston, Virginia. He received a B.S. from Purdue University in 1983 and a PhD from Penn State University in 1987.
Gabriel Senay, EROS Data Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Ft Collins, CO
Gabriel Senay is a Research Physical Scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science center and an Adjunct Professor at South Dakota State University. He has worked for the U.S. EPA as a remote sensing scientist and worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Oklahoma State University. Senay is a licensed professional engineer and obtained a B.S. in Agricultural Engineering from Alemaya University in Ethiopia, an M.S. in Hydrology from Wageningen University in The Netherlands, and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering from The Ohio State University.
Wade Kress, Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Nashville, TN
Wade Kress has been a hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey since 1996. He has a BS in geology from Louisiana Tech University and is currently working on an MSc in petroleum geosciences at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. Wade has worked throughout the United States as well as the United Arab Emirates on environmental and hydrogeologic framework projects specializing in the application of hydrogeophysics
David Ladd, Lower Mississippi - Gulf Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Nashville, TN
David began working for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in late 1992 and serves as a hydrologist and GIS Specialist for the USGS Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center in Nashville, TN. David has served as both a project manager of studies that focus on GIS methods and an instructor of GIS software and techniques. His current focus pertains to spatial analysis and water-balance modeling in regional studies of groundwater availability.
