Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2013TN100B

Long-term Evaluation of Norris Dam Operation under Changing Environments

Institute: Tennessee
Year Established: 2013 Start Date: 2013-03-01 End Date: 2014-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $11,428 Total Non-Federal Funds: $18,181

Principal Investigators: Ungtae Kim

Abstract: This project aims to provide the long-term variability of Norris reservoir operation considering climate and other hydrologic changes. The major research questions are: (1) are the current capacity and operation policy of the Norris reservoir enough to meet diverse water demands under changing conditions? (2) is the current operating guide still effective in controlling the prolonged drought and flood events that climate change may cause in next decades? (3) what would be the quantitative changes in the benefit of the Norris reservoir using current operating guide under the changed conditions? and (4) finally, what would be a practical and implementable alternative operating guide to reduce the negative effects while maximizing net benefit? This project will use downscaled climate modeling outputs, combined hydrologic model, and stochastically generated long-term time-series of climatic variables. The uncertainty range of the performance of reservoir operation will be presented. This project expects that the quantified future variability of Norris reservoirs operational performance will be immediate needs to decision makers in TVA in order to plan long-term watershed management strategy.