Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2011NJ292G

Drought and Flood in the Eastern US

Institute: New Jersey
USGS Grant Number:
Year Established: 2011 Start Date: 2011-09-01 End Date: 2013-08-31
Total Federal Funds: $249,416 Total Non-Federal Funds: $249,416

Principal Investigators: James Smith, Justin Sheffield, Eric Wood

Project Summary: We propose to develop statistical procedures for regional analyses of drought and flood in the eastern US based on USGS stream gaging data. The broad objective of this study is to develop new statistical tools for characterization of water resources and flood hazards. The specific objectives of the study are to develop statistical procedures for: 1) assessing non-stationarities of drought and flood variables (in terms of change-points, slowly varying trends and long-term persistence), 2) characterizing spatial extremes of drought and flood and 3) characterizing the interrelationships between drought and flood, including their relationships to climate indices. We will focus on the interrelationships between drought and flood, with a particular emphasis on water supply for large urban centers of the eastern US. Procedures will exploit �mixture distribution� representations of flood and drought variables; these representations center on tropical cyclones, which are major rainfall and flood agents during summer and fall, and extratropical systems, which are major rainfall and flood agents during spring and fall in the eastern US. We adopt a regional approach covering the eastern US due to the scale of the weather and climate systems at play. Special emphasis will be placed in this study on water supply for the New York City (Delaware River basin), Washington D. C. (Potomac River basin), Charlotte, North Carolina (Catawba River basin) and Atlanta, Georgia (Chattahoochee River basin) systems.