Longer droughts, bigger floods: UMass Amherst hydrologist maps the future of water in New England

Climate change is causing a cascade of changes to everything from harvests to flooded basements; new research will help us know what to expect

University of Massachusetts Amherst

 

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“We’re 30–40 years into significant changes to New England’s climate,” says Boutt, “and we’re seeing marked shifts in everything from the water table, to the intensity of rainstorms, to the length and timing of droughts.”

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Credit: UMass Amherst

AMHERST, Mass. — New England is warming faster than any other part of the United States due to climate change. Part of the havoc a warming world wreaks is on the “water budget”—the frequency, timing and amount of precipitation, where that moisture goes once it lands, how it interacts with trees and plants, how much evaporates and how it eventually seeps into the ground and flows as subsurface water. Thanks to a $498,999 grant from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), David Boutt, professor in the Department of Earth, Geographic and Climate Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will spend the next three years building advanced integrated hydrologic models that will allow New England to predict with spatial precision how the region’s water budget will change in the coming years.

“We’re 30–40 years into significant changes to New England’s climate,” says Boutt, “and we’re seeing marked shifts in everything from the water table, which is rising throughout the region, to the intensity of rainstorms, which are getting fiercer, to the length and timing of droughts.”

Traditionally, most hydrologic research in the U.S. has focused on the arid parts of the country, but, notes Boutt, “especially in the wake of the devastating floods that hit Vermont and Western Massachusetts the last few summers, the USGS is proactively meeting the need New England has for advanced research.”

Boutt’s study, “Identifying Climate Drivers of Water-Cycle Changes in the U.S. Northeast and Their Impact on Evapotranspiration, Groundwater Recharge Patterns, and Groundwater-Surface Water Connectivity,” co-led by Matthew Winnick, assistant professor of earth, geographic and climate sciences at UMass Amherst, is one of eight funded by the USGS’s New England Water Cycle Center seeking to build. The study is a comprehensive picture of how water works in New England, and will investigate everything from snowmelt to erosion to algal blooms.

For his own part, Boutt, along with his UMass Amherst team, which includes a postdoctoral researcher, a graduate student and two undergraduate students, has three objectives.

The first is to analyze past hydrological datasets from the USGS and other state agencies and partners. “We are tremendously lucky that Massachusetts and the USGS have a long history of close cooperation, and we have one of the best, longest and most robust instrumental datasets on rainfall, streamflow, groundwater levels and more,” says Boutt.

The state also has more recent, extremely granular groundwater level datasets 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 recorded data at 15-minute intervals — which means that we can track exactly how the water from, say, a particular thunderstorm moved through the hydrologic system,” says Boutt.

In the second phase of the project, Boutt and his team will analyze the stable water isotopes in ground and surface water. These isotopes are like fingerprints and can tell researchers exactly where the precipitation came from. Given that climate change is altering weather patterns, Boutt wants to see where the water in New England is coming from — the North Atlantic, the Arctic, the Gulf of Mexico — and how its origin is shifting over time.

Finally, in the third phase of research, Boutt and his team will use what they learn from their historical analysis and isotope research to build a series of advanced hydrologic models capable of fine-grained predictions of how the cycles of both surface and groundwater will change according to different climate scenarios.

“Combining the USGS’s expertise with the power of academic research is the best way to understand where we’re headed,” says Boutt, “and will help us prepare for an uncertain future.”

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