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Streamflow projections for southwestern United States (1975-2099)

July 12, 2023

We projected future streamflow outcomes arising from climate change for
the southwestern United States during the 21st century due to climate
change under two possible greenhouse gas concentration pathways
(RCP4.5 and 8.5). The results inform water managers about the future
risks of drought in their water resource regions by providing bounds on
the possible locations and extents of streamflow loss. To get to these
results, we used downscaled future and historic climate data from seven
models to drive a new, calibrated SPAtially Referenced Regression On
Watershed attributes (SPARROW) streamflow model (Wise and others,
2019, Miller and others, 2020). Temperature and precipitation data come
from the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) Downscaled Climate Projections
(NEX-DCP30, Thrasher and others, 2013 and Thrasher and others, 2015),
and actual and potential evapotranspiration come from the NEX-DCP30
temperature and precipitation used in the Monthly Water Balance Model
(MWBM, Hostetler and Alder, 2016 and Alder, 2017a,b,c). This data set
comprises climate data preprocessing code to convert the gridded,
monthly-scale climate data to reach scale multidecadal averages for the
intervals 1975-2005, 2020-2049, 2040-2069 and 2070-2099, the model
input (data1) and model control files, the model code, model results files,
and code to post-process and analyze the streamflow model results. The
raw climate data (NEX-DCP30, MWBM), and SPARROW model calibration
documentation are publicly available elsewhere and are cross linked with
this data release (see crossref section). The full data preparation, modeling,
and analysis methods, as well as results are described in Miller and others,
(2021).

Publication Year 2023
Title Streamflow projections for southwestern United States (1975-2099)
DOI 10.5066/P9J0J1I5
Authors Annie L Putman, Olivia L Miller
Product Type Data Release
Record Source USGS Digital Object Identifier Catalog
USGS Organization Salt Lake City Main Office