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Metropolitan Water Availability Forecasting Methods and Applications in South Florida
Citation:
Chang, N. AND Y. J. YANG. Metropolitan Water Availability Forecasting Methods and Applications in South Florida. Presented at EPA's First National Expert and Stakeholder Workshop on Water Infrastructure Sustainability and Adaptation to Climate Changes, Washington, DC, January 06 - 07, 2009.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
The availability of adequate fresh water is fundamental to the sustainable management of water infrastructures that support both urban needs and agricultural uses in human society. Recent drought events in the U.S. have threatened drinking water supplies for communities in Maryland and Chesapeake Bay in 2001 through September 2002, Lake Mead in Las Vegas in 200 through 2004, the Peace River and Lake Okeechobee in South Florida in 2006, and Lake Lanier in Atlanta, Georgia in 2007. In the time of climate change, there is a renewed interest to develop a Water Availability Forecasting platform that serves for short-term water availability assessment and long-term water availability forecasting for big metropolitan region. This quantitative information is critical to assist water planning agencies and utilities in water supply planning, operations and adaptation (POA) to climate changes. In this presentation, the methodologies of this forecasting platform being proposed and established will be described followed by a practical application example in South Florida. Similar to drought, ultraviolate index (UV index) and air quality index that have been widely used, the metropolitan water availability index (MWAI) presents a near real-time, risk-informed and forward-looking instrumental message in terms of both the quantity and quality of available fresh water in major metropolitan regions. The first is the use of multi-scale and multi-dimensional databases of optical and microwave satellite images, such as the NASA GOES, MODIS Terra and Aqua etc., and ground-based radar stations, such as the NOAA NEXRAD system. It is intended to pr9vide short-term (days to weeks) water availability forecasting in form of a MWAI. The second is the long-term precipitation periodicity analysis with the assistance from hydroclimatic GCM/RCM modeling. This effort that incorporates the hydroclimatic modeling with integrated ground-based sensor network and remote sensing technologies, aims at short-term to long-term forecasts. It is designed to forecast the future trend. Different form the existing methods, MWAI forecasting uses decision-science and artificial intelligence and incorporates both water quantity and quality information in a simple numerical range from -1 to 1. This presentation is intended to present a methological review about: 1) What data sources form the multi-scale and multi-dimensional databases should be used, and 2) How these databases can be applied to calculate MWAI and help reduce the managerial risks of water infrastructure. We illustrate this methodology with an example of MWAI development in Tampa Bay, southern Florida.