The US is headed for longer droughts and more destructive floods

USA and in particular the North Eastern area of ​​New England will experience in the short and medium term longer droughts and more destructive floods.This is what emerges from the preliminary data of a project that aims to study the waters of that part of the States and their evolution in relation to the climate. Thanks to a $498,999 grant from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), David Boutt, a professor in the Department of Earth, Geographic and Climate Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMaas Amherst), will spend the next three years developing models advanced integrated hydrological systems that will enable the New England to predict with spatial precision how the region’s water balance will change in the near future.

“It’s been 30 to 40 years since New England’s climate began to undergo significant changes,” says Boutt, “and we’re seeing notable changes everything from the water table, which is rising across the region, to the intensity of storms, which are becoming more severe, to the duration and timing of droughts.” Traditionally, most hydrological research in the United States has focused on the country’s arid areas, but, notes Boutt, “especially in the wake of the devastating floods that hit Vermont and Massachusetts Western over the past few summers, the USGS is proactively responding to New England’s need for advanced research.”

For his part, Boutt, along with his UMass Amherst team, which includes a postdoctoral researcher, a graduate student and two undergraduate students, has three goals. The first is to analyze past hydrologic datasets from the USGS and other state agencies and partners. “We are extremely fortunate that Massachusetts and the USGS have a long history of close collaboration and we have one of the best, largest and most robust instrumental datasets on precipitation, stream flow, groundwater levels and more,” says Boutt. The state also has newer, extremely granular groundwater level data sets that can be used to track the effects of particular hydrologic events.

“In the past, data was often recorded monthly by hand, but more recently the USGS and its partners in Massachusetts have been recording data at 15-minute intervals, meaning we can track exactly how water, for example, one particular storm moved through the hydrologic system,” Boutt says. In the second phase of the project, Boutt and his team will analyze stable water isotopes in groundwater and surface water. These isotopes are like fingerprints and can tell researchers exactly where precipitation comes from. As climate change is altering weather patterns, Boutt wants to see where the water in New England comes from (the North Atlantic, the Arctic, the Gulf of Mexico) and how its origin is changing over time.

Finally, in the third phase of the research, Boutt and his team will use what they have learned from historical analyzes and isotope research to build a series of advanced hydrological models that can provide detailed predictions about how surface and groundwater cycles will change based on to different climate scenarios.