[1] The sustainability of human water use practices is a rapidly growing concern in the United States and around the world. To better characterize direct human interaction with hydrologic systems (stream basins and aquifers), we introduce the concept of the water use regime. Unlike scalar indicators of anthropogenic hydrologic stress in the literature, the water use regime is a two-dimensional, vector indicator that can be depicted on simple x-y plots of normalized human withdrawals (h out ) versus normalized human return flows (h in ). Four end-member regimes, natural-flow-dominated (undeveloped), human-flow-dominated (churned), withdrawal-dominated (depleted), and return-flow-dominated (surcharged), are defined in relation to limiting values of h out and h in . For illustration, the water use regimes of 19 diverse hydrologic systems are plotted and interpreted. Several of these systems, including the Yellow River Basin, China, and the California Central Valley Aquifer, are shown to approach particular end-member regimes. Spatial and temporal regime variations, both seasonal and long-term, are depicted. Practical issues of data availability and regime uncertainty are addressed in relation to the statistical properties of the ratio estimators h out and h in . The water use regime is shown to be a useful tool for comparative water resources assessment and for describing both historic and alternative future pathways of water resource development at a range of scales.
Conversion Factors and Datum Multiply By To obtain Length foot (ft) 0.3048 meter (m) mile (mi) 1.609 kilometer (km) Area square mile (mi 2) 259.0 hectare (ha) square mile (mi 2) 2.590 square kilometer (km 2) Flow rate cubic foot per second (ft 3 /s) 0.02832 cubic meter per second (m 3 /s) Temperature in degrees Fahrenheit (°F) may be converted to degrees Celsius (°C) as follows:°C =(°F-32)/1.8 Vertical coordinate information is referenced to North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88). Horizontal coordinate information is referenced to North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83). Altitude, as used in this report, refers to distance above the vertical datum.
No abstract
Physically based mathematical models were developed to estimate the natural yields of basins in Massachusetts during times of low flow. Streamflow statistics used in the models to express basin yields are the discharges that were equaled or exceeded 95, 98, and 99 percent of the time during a base period of 25 years (October 1,1962, through September 30, 1987; water years 1963-87). These duration discharges for 41 sites were related to the physical characteristics of the sites by use of weighted-least-squares multipleregression analyses. All physical characteristics were measured by use of a computerized geographic information system. Record-extension techniques were used to adjust duration discharges for sites with incomplete records to the baseperiod conditions. Weights were determined by use of a function that corrects for length of record at each site and for nonconstant variance of the regression residuals. Basin characteristics used in the models included drainage area, the amount of stratified drift per unit length of streams in the basin, and a surrogate measure of the effective head of the aquifer in stratified-drift deposits. Standard errors of estimation were 34.1 percent, 41.4 percent, and 37.9 percent, and standard errors of prediction were 39.3 percent, 47.5 percent, and 44.4 percent, for the equations predicting the 95-, 98-, and 99-percent duration discharges, respectively. The models were used to predict duration discharges for the base period for 72 selected sites in the Boston Harbor Basin and in the Blackstone, Charles, and Taunton River Basins in eastern Massachusetts. Ninety-percent prediction intervals were computed for the estimates at each site. Estimates of the duration discharges during water years 1980-81, the most recent drought in Massachusetts, were obtained by multiplying the estimates from the regression equations by averaged ratios of duration discharges for water years 1980 81 to those for the 25-year base period for streamflow-gaging stations in or near the study basins. 'A drought having a recurrence interval of 30 years will occur, on average, once in 30 years.
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