Grantee Research Project Results
2007 Progress Report: Integrating Water Supply Management and Ecological Flow Requirements
EPA Grant Number: X3832386Title: Integrating Water Supply Management and Ecological Flow Requirements
Investigators: Smith, Mark P. , Vogel, Richard , Joyce, Brian , Apse, Colin , Purkey, David , Sieber, Jack , Archfield, Stacey , Gao, Yongxuan
Current Investigators: Smith, Mark P. , Vogel, Richard , Huber-Lee, Annette , Joyce, Brian , Apse, Colin , Sieber, Jack , Archfield, Stacey , Gao, Yongxuan
Institution: Nature Conservancy, The , Stockholm Environment Institute , Tufts University
Current Institution: Nature Conservancy, The , Stockholm Environment Institute , Tellus Institute , Tufts University
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: May 1, 2005 through April 30, 2008 (Extended to October 31, 2009)
Project Period Covered by this Report: May 1, 2007 through April 30,2008
Project Amount: $287,434
RFA: Collaborative Science & Technology Network for Sustainability (2004) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Sustainable and Healthy Communities , Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development
Objective:
This project addresses a question central to environmental sustainability – how to balance the use of water to meet both human and environmental needs. The project has developed a decision support system (DSS) that provides the ability to integrate ecological flow policies, water demand management and reservoir operation into a decision-oriented simulation and optimization framework that promotes sound ecological and water supply management. The DSS will allow water resource managers to simultaneously maximize use of water storage capacity, strategically use drought management measures to optimize their effectiveness, and meet key ecological flow needs based on real-time environmental conditions.
Approach:
The approach will be developed and tested through two demonstration projects. The DSS will be available as open source computer code and will be incorporated into the widely used Water Evaluation and Planning Tool (WEAP), a water supply planning and management model developed by the Tellus Institute, a co-PI of this project. As of June 2005, WEAP will be freely available to every water utility in the US [through funding by] that is a member of the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AwwaRF). Results will be broadly shared with state and implemented through and existing collaboration between The Nature Conservancy, Tufts University and the Tellus Institute, each of whom has primary expertise in one of the three disciplines central to this project.
Progress Summary:
The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) Simulation model has been completed with new subroutines for calculating multiple simulation runs and management policies as well as for calculating the water supply yield for reservoirs resulting from these policies. Post-processing functions have been developed in EXCEL for reporting of flow metrics, eco-deficit, and eco-surplus values.
Two new measures of flow alteration were developed: Ecodeficit & Ecosurplus – generally defined as the difference between the annual flow duration curve of unaltered and altered conditions. Further flow alteration measures are under development.
Our first case study is underway. We are working with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to support their effort to develop a stream flow protection regulation as one of the two case studies for this project. The project will include analyzing draft stream flow standards for their impact on reservoirs of different sizes and in different watersheds and of standards for direct river withdrawals. The project also will compare results to a reservoir model being built by the Institute for Water Resources (IWR) at the University of Connecticut.
Future Activities:
Analysis for the second paper “Defining Ecological Sustainable Yields for Water Supply Reservoirs” has been completed and the paper is in progress. This paper provides more detailed sensitivity analysis of the trade-offs between reservoir management policies and ecological flow conditions. Analysis for the third paper “Development of Representative Indicators for Evaluation of Stream Flow Alteration” is approximately 60 percent complete. This paper involves an evaluation of various stream flow metrics for their ability to characterize changes in ecological flow regimes caused by dams. This analysis includes a detailed evaluation of the measures “ecosurplus” and “ecodeficit” introduced by our project team. We also will identify and initiate our second case study.
Journal Articles on this Report : 2 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 21 publications | 3 publications in selected types | All 3 journal articles |
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Smith MP. Defining sustainability: new tools for water management. Journal of the American Water Works Association 2007;99(10):20-23. |
X3832386 (2006) X3832386 (2007) X3832386 (Final) |
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Vogel RM, Sieber J, Archfield SA, Smith MP, Apse CD, Huber-Lee A. Relations among storage, yield, and instream flow. Water Resources Research 2007;43, W05403, doi:10.1029/2006WR005226. |
X3832386 (2006) X3832386 (2007) X3832386 (Final) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
RFA, Scientific Discipline, Sustainable Industry/Business, Sustainable Environment, Technology for Sustainable Environment, Urban and Regional Planning, decision making, ecological design, sustainable development, sustainable urban environment, sustainable water use, water conservation,, RFA, Scientific Discipline, Sustainable Industry/Business, cleaner production/pollution prevention, Sustainable Environment, Technology for Sustainable Environment, Urban and Regional Planning, sustainable development, sustainable water use, water evaluation and urban planning tool, decision making, ecological design, sustainable urban environment, water conservationRelevant Websites:
http://www.nature.org/freshwater Exit
http://engineering.tufts.edu/cee/people/vogel/index.asp Exit
http://www.seib.org Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.