1. Water Management Tools for Water Supply and Water Management Richard McNider James Cruise, Cameron Handyside and Kevin Doty University of Alabama in Huntsville Alabama Water Resources Conference September 5, 2013 A Quantitative Approach

2. Water Management For Alabama to adopt a Comprehensive Water Management Plan it may have to be shown that the economic cost of not having a plan exceeds the cost of the plan. Today the State is losing $100’s of millions because farmers don’t have access to water and are not irrigating. Some areas such as Birmingham may face water restrictions if we have a drought like 1954 again. Nursery and lawn and garden sales retails might be reduced by $10-100 million. Loss of habitat may lead to greater number of endangered species leading to costly permit delays for industry and agriculture. 100’s of millions in irrigation infrastructure may be at risk if new upstream riparian users take water – the farmer is at the mercy of a court.

3. Water Management For Alabama to Adopt a Comprehensive Water Plan - We need quantitative tools to determine what impact the plan may have on stakeholders: What does it mean for municipal water suppliers – will they be able to protect their investment in water infrastructure – how many time will they face water restrictions such as Birmingham in 2000 if a plan is in place ? How many times might an irrigating farmer face restrictions on withdrawals – can he afford to make irrigation investments?

4. Water Management Is 15 gallons of fuel a lot? It is if it is ¾ tank of gas in your car. It is not if it is what you have left in a Boeing 747 in its 45,000 gallon tank. Is $100,000 too much to pay for a car? It is if your income is $50,000. May be not if you are Jay Leno and that is only 1% of your annual income. Is $1000 too much to pay for a hair cut? Not if you are Donald Trump or John Edwards. Is 100 million gallons per day a lot of water for public water supply? It is if you are El Paso and it is 50% of the average flow of the Rio Grande. It may not be if that is the water supply needs for a most of North Alabama and it is only 4% of the average flow of the Tennessee River. To be meaningful water use must be viewed against available water. It’s all relative!

5. Water Management Water Supply is Highly Variable

6. Water Management Add Water Withdrawal

7. Water Management Practical Water Management Questions: How would Birmingham Water Supply Fare if we had the droughts of 1950’s? How many acres can we add in irrigation in a given water shed without impacting environmental flows? How would adding 1 million acres of irrigation in Alabama impact flow into the Mobile Delta if we had the drought of 2007 again? How would lake levels change on Lake Mitchell if 15% of Birmingham water supply were provided from the Coosa River? What would be the impact on hydroelectric revenues of Alabama Power if 50,000 acres of irrigation were supplied by Coosa River.

8. Water Management Water assessment is dynamic –How much water is available compared to the demand for water ? Withdrawals USGS Water Use Sectors Irrigation Domestic Industrial Livestock Mining Thermoelectric Supply Precipitation Inflow Return Flow Evapo- transpiration

9. Water Management Under a major National Science Foundation – USDA climate adaptation award UAH is collaborating with the USDA Forest Service Raleigh Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center to improve and apply the WASSI Model to the Southeast. We believe this is the type model that can underpin a Comprehensive Water Plan for Alabama. Model could be run by OWR.

10. Current Operational Model Monthly Time Step 8-Digit HUC Level Run for 1951-2012 Employs USGS/Alabama Water Use for 2005

11. Hydrologic Model/Demand Model

12. Water Management The hydrologic flows from the WaSSI Model can be used to compare to Environmental Flows/Instream Flows. The Alabama Conservation Department – Instream Flow Criteria or the ACF Flow Requirements could be used as the test statistic (see Srivastava et al. 2010). The Forest Service has used a WaSSI value greater than 0.4 to indicate stress on a water shed. Environmental Flows

13. Water Management Simulation 1995-2005

14. Water Management WASSI Flows Compared to Stream Flow – Alabama River at Claiborne 1961 1984 2007

15. Water Management With Rule Curves for Reservoirs in Alabama

16. Water Management

19. Mean WASSI (fraction of demand to supply), 1950-2010

20. 10/17/2015 20 Average Oct WaSSI 1951-2010

21. Water Management Mean wassi for February 1961-2007 February Mean Values

22. Water Management Maximum WASSI and Year

23. 10/17/2015 23 % Time WaSSI Less Than.40 (1951-2010)

24. Water Management The challenge for water resource management in Alabama is to avoid policies that restrict water use during the majority of times that water resources are not stressed trying to protect the resource the few times when extreme droughts do strain water availability. WaSSI can give an indication of how many times over a 50 year period water withdrawal restrictions might be imposed due to extreme stress. Historical data can be used to set actuarial rates for water insurance

25. Water Management Irrigation Demand is Dynamic GridDSSAT Crop Model USDA NASS Cropscape Data Watershed Irrigation Withdrawals

26. Combined acreage of corn, cotton, soybeans, and peanuts in units of km 2 for HUC-8 regions

27. April-August (1951-1999) Number of Months Increase WASSI > 0.40 For 10% Crop Acreage Irrigation

28. April-August (1951-1999) Number of Months Increase WASSI > 0.40 For 25% Crop Acreage Irrigation

29. April-August (1951-1999) Number of Months Increase WASSI > 0.40 For 50% Crop Acreage Irrigation

30. April-August (1951-1999) Number of Months Increase WASSI > 0.40 For 75% Crop Acreage Irrigation

31. April-August (1951-1999) Number of Months Increase WASSI > 0.40 For 100% Crop Acreage Irrigation

32. Water Management Future Improvements Make weather dependent adjustments to withdrawal data sectors such as public water supply and thermoelectric withdrawals. Improve current irrigation location and wetted area data Configure WaSSI to run at HUC12 and at daily/weekly time step Add groundwater/surface water interaction Run WaSSI in real-time on a daily basis Connect WaSSI Hydrology to Corp ResSIM model.

33. Water Management HUC8 HUC12

34. Water Management Real-time Radar NASA land surface temperatures Satellite derived insolation Real-time Gridded Crop Model

35. Water Management Real-time Radar NASA land surface temperatures Satellite derived insolation Real-time WASSI Model

36. Water Management Schematic example of p WaSSI-GriDSSAT “Red Yellow Green” system at the 12 –digit HUC resolution. Green indicates all environmental flow criteria are being met. Yellow indicates that flows are near environmental limits. Red indicates environmental flows are threatened and water restrictions may be needed.