Project Summary
Climate change is projected to have substantial impacts on Pacific Northwest water resources and ecosystems. Recognizing this, resource managers have expressed growing interest in incorporating climate change information into long-range planning. The availability of hydrologic scenarios to support climate change adaptation and long-range planning, however, has been limited until very recently to a relatively small number of selected case studies. More comprehensive resources needed to support regional planning have been lacking. Furthermore, ecosystem studies at the landscape scale need consistent climate change information and databases over large geographic areas. Products using a common set of methods that would support such studies have not been readily available.
To address these needs, the Climate Impacts Group worked with several prominent water management agencies in the Pacific Northwest to develop hydrologic climate change scenarios for approximately 300 streamflow locations in the Columbia River basin and selected coastal drainages west of the Cascades. Study partners are listed below. The scenarios, provided to the public for free via this website, allow planners to consider how hydrologic changes may affect water resources management objectives and ecosystems.
Access to the data and summary products is available from the menu to the left. The hydrologic data produced by the study are based on climate change scenariosproduced for the IPCC Fourth Assessment effort. Information on the methods and modeling tools used in the study is provided in the summary report. For new users of the site, a guide to the website and the data resources contained within it is also provided.
