 |
|
|
| Water Resources | Science-Policy |
| Research Assistant Professor | Geography Department | University of Idaho |
My dissertation work is on Integrated Assessment modeling.
In plain language, this means I am translating projected future impacts such as climate change from coarse models of temperature and precipitation, to things we care about, such as local water supply.
Ingredients
in my Integrated Assessment Modeling:
Integrated hydrology/water operations modeling
I have built a model of the Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced River Basins in California's Central Valley using the WEAP platform. The model represents both climate-driven hydrology and the water resources system that stores and conveys water for objectives including irrigated agriculture, urban demands, and in-stream flows for ecosystem uses.
Climate, population, and land use
I am using the WEAP model to compare the projected impacts of three future drivers on water supply risk (together, separately, and with uncertainty).
Risk analysis
While we know that future climate, population, and land use will profoundly affect water resources and ecosystem function, there is tremendous uncertainty in what the future will actually bring. I am adapting economic risk analysis to integrate decision-maker preferences into my impacts analysis, and analyze the importance of each of these factors under uncertainty.
Representative
Charles A. Young, Marisa Escobar, Martha Fernandes, Brian Joyce, Michael Kiparsky, Jeffrey Mount, Vishal Mehta, David Purkey, Josh Viers, and David Yates. “Modeling the Hydrology of California's Sierra Nevada for Sub-Watershed Scale Adaptation to Climate Change.” In press. Journal of the American Water Resources Association.
Michael Kiparsky, Carter Brooks and Peter H. Gleick. 2006. “Is adaptive capacity linked to regional disparities in research on climate and water?” Climatic Change 77: 363-375.