Identifier

etd-05172016-095925

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Goal of this study is to investigate the impacts of climate change projection uncertainty on conjunctive use of water resources. To pursue this goal first, a conjunctive-use model is developed for management of groundwater and surface water resources via mixed integer linear fractional programming (MILFP). The conjunctive management model maximizes the ratio of groundwater usage to reservoir water usage. A conditional head constraint is imposed to maintain groundwater sustainability. A transformation approach is introduced to transform the conditional head constraint into a set of mixed integer linear constraints in terms of groundwater head. A supply network is proposed to apply the conjunctive-use model to northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas. Then, simple model averaging (SMA), reliability ensemble averaging (REA), and hierarchical Bayesian model averaging (HBMA) are utilized as ensemble averaging methods to provide a thorough understanding of the impacts of climate change on future runoff for the study area. An ensemble of 78 hydroclimate models is formed by forcing HELP3 with climate data from combinations of 13 GCMs, 2 RCPs, and 3 downscaling methods. Runoff projections obtained from SMA, REA, and HBMA are compared. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is used to quantify the sources of uncertainty of SMA projection and compare to the estimations made by HBMA. Both methods show similar contribution of uncertainty indicating that GCMs are the dominant source of uncertainty. At last, the proposed conjunctive use model is applied to optimize the conjunctive use of future surface water and groundwater resources under climate change projection. Future inflows to the reservoirs are estimated from the future runoffs projected through hydroclimate modeling, where the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model and 11 GCM RCP8.5 downscaled climate outputs are considered. Bayesian model averaging (BMA) is adopted to quantify uncertainty in future runoff projections and reservoir inflow projections due to uncertain future climate projections. The results from the developed conjunctive management model indicate that the future reservoir water even with low inflow projections at 2.5% cumulative probability would be able to counterbalance groundwater pumping reduction to satisfy demands while improving the Sparta aquifer through conditional groundwater head constraint.

Date

2016

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Tsai, Frank Tsung-Chen

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.3058

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