ERI: Investigating different types of drought across snowy regions and their impacts

This project aims to advance knowledge of drought characteristics in snowy areas needed for sustainably managing water resources. Gaps exist in understanding how a drought propagates and intensifies across different components of the water cycle, especially in snowy, mountainous areas. Seasonal snowmelt supplies millions of people across the western U.S. with a significant fraction of their water resources.

This project aims to address open questions by characterizing the rate of drought onset, its drivers, and how these factors influence drought impacts. Rates of propagation among different types of droughts (e.g., a lack of snow water equivalent [snow drought], streamflow [hydrological drought], and soil moisture [agricultural drought]) will be quantified.

The severity, duration, timing, and intensification rate of how one type of drought influences the characteristics and lag of another will be studied. How these relationships vary in space and time using state-of-the-art data, models, and observations will be elucidated. Findings from this research are targeted to help build more sustainable communities, developing climate resilient infrastructure and managing water resources in areas where snow is a vital freshwater resource.

The project will develop a new multivariate framework for understanding drought characteristics and propagation in snowy areas. Investigating the impact of snow variability, drivers of drought, and the rate of drought onset will inform water management and drought monitoring. Given the lag between snow and streamflow deficits, this analysis aims to yield insight into drought prediction.

The project will assess how and to what extent the onset rate, drivers of snow drought, and antecedent conditions will influence the amount of water in other states/fluxes (e.g., soil moisture, runoff). Also, new multivariate drought indices from this research will enable quantification of drought severity in snowy areas across the globe, which will be critical in a warming climate.

Findings and methods are expected to improve streamflow forecasts, sustainable water resources management and engineering, and drought assessment at sub-seasonal and interannual time scales. Results will be shared with the broader community via presentations at scientific meetings, peer-reviewed journal publications, and online data repositories (e.g., CUAHSI’s Hydroshare).

Since snow and drought impact numerous areas beyond water management and engineering, findings should impact other sectors of society and guide decision making in agriculture, economics, and urban planning. The multivariate drought frameworks from this research will be freely provided to the public so water agencies, scientists, and engineers can benefit from their application.

Also, a hands-on Drought Education Toolbox (DET) to integrate novel snow and drought research into engineering education will be developed. DET allows users to study the role of snow in drought. The PI works with existing programs that promote diversity in STEM and the development of minority students at California State University, Long Beach, to mentor underrepresented students in research.

The project will train undergraduate and graduate students in hydrology, water resources engineering, and drought and multivariate data analysis.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.