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Climate change impacts on spatial patterns in drought risk in the Willamette River Basin, Oregon, USA

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Abstract

Climate change is likely to lead more frequent droughts in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) of America. Rising air temperature will reduce winter snowfall and increase earlier snowmelt, subsequently reducing summer flows. Longer crop-growing season caused by higher temperatures will lead to increases in evapotranspiration and irrigation water demand, which could exacerbate drought damage. However, the impacts of climate change on drought risk will vary over space and time. Thus, spatially explicit drought assessment can help water resource managers and planners to better cope with risk. This study seeks to identify possible drought-vulnerable regions in the Willamette River Basin of the PNW. In order to estimate drought risk in a spatially explicit way, relative Standardized Precipitation Index (rSPI) and relative Standardized Runoff Index (rSRI) were employed. Statistically downscaled climate simulations forcing two greenhouse gas emission scenarios, A1B and B1, were used to investigate the possible changes in drought frequency with 3-, 6-, 12-, and 24-month time scales. The results of rSPI and rSRI showed an increase in the short-term frequency of drought due to decreases in summer precipitation and snowmelt. However, long-term drought showed no change or a slight decreasing pattern due to increases in winter precipitation and runoff. According to the local index of spatial autocorrelation analysis, the Willamette Valley region was more vulnerable (hot spot) to drought risk than the mountainous regions of the Western Cascades and the High Cascades (cold spot). Although the hydrology of the Western Cascades and the High Cascades will be affected by climate change, these regions will remain relatively water-rich. This suggests that improving the water transfer system could be a reasonable climate adaptation option. Additionally, these results showed that the spatial patterns of drought risk change were affected by drought indices, such that appropriate drought index selection will be important in future studies of climate impacts on spatial drought risk.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Institute for Sustainable Solutions (ISS) at Portland State University. Additional support was provided by US National Science Foundation under grant no. CR-1038925. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. We thank Madeline Steele of Portland State University for proofreading the manuscript and for the helpful comments.

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  1. Department of Geography, Portland State University, Portland, OR, 97201, USA

    Il Won Jung & Heejun Chang

  2. Institute for Sustainable Solutions, Portland State University, Portland, OR, 97201, USA

    Il Won Jung & Heejun Chang

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  1. Il Won Jung
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Correspondence to Heejun Chang.

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Jung, I.W., Chang, H. Climate change impacts on spatial patterns in drought risk in the Willamette River Basin, Oregon, USA. Theor Appl Climatol 108, 355–371 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-011-0531-8

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