New Jersey Section of American Water Resources Association (NJ-AWRA)
Spring 2021 Future Risk Seminar:
Tracking Droughts in the Delaware River Basin
Date: Thursday February 4th, 2021
Droughts in New Jersey and the Delaware River Basin are infrequent but are high risk for water resource managers. There are 8.9 million people in New Jersey using water for potable supply, irrigation, industry and power generation. Over 600 billion gallons of water are withdrawn for these purposes each year. Shortfall brought on by drought can have extreme impacts. Scientific investigations into drought history and drought prediction offer resource managers information for decision making to mitigate risks associated with drought. This webinar will showcase two recent projects examining drought in the Delaware River Basin:
Estimating Delaware River Basin Drought Streamflow Probabilities Using Antecedent Flow Conditions
by Sam Austin
This talk will discuss ongoing project work to estimate hydrological drought streamflow probabilities. This methodology, capable of predicting droughts from 1 to 11 months in advance of their occurrence using streamflow daily mean values from prior months as explanatory variables within 342 gaged basins within the Delaware River Basin.
Hydro‐Climatic Drought in the Delaware River Basin
by Dave Wolock and Greg McCabe
In this study, a monthly water balance model is used to compute monthly water balance components (such as potential evapotranspiration (ET), actual ET, and runoff) for the DRB from 1901 through 2015. An examination of drought events estimated from a tree-ring based reconstruction of the Palmer Drought Severity Index for year 490 through 2005 indicates that although there were some DRB droughts that were longer and more severe during previous centuries, the DRB droughts between 1901 and 2015 were comparable in duration and severity to most drought events in previous centuries.
This talk is eligible for 1 NJ PE self reporting credit and 1 AICP CM self reporting credit
This meeting is a virtual meeting, link to be provided to registrants prior to the event.
We are asking all attendees to please fill out the course evaluation form. This form is required for receipt of continuing education credits and certificate: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LKZWKGW
Samuel H. Austin is a hydrologist with the USGS Virginia and West Virginia Water Science Center. For that past 32 years Sam has enjoyed applying statistics and modeling methods to the investigation, analysis, and characterization of natural resource processes, time-series, probable outcomes, and management questions. Areas of emphasis have included: surface water hydrology, forest hydrology, fluvial geomorphology, environmental and economic analytics, forecasting, scenario analysis, and management decision-making.
David M. Wolock, PhD. is a supervisory hydrologist with the USGS Kansas Water Science Center. He attended college at Colgate, Cornell, and UVA. Dave was born and raised in NJ and started with the USGS in 1988 where he spent 3 years in the NJ Water Supply Commission working on the DRB climate change project. He transferred to Kansas WSC in 1991 and is still stationed there today as he currently works on DRB projects.
