Climate change is projected to alter the flow regimes of streams and rivers, with consequences for physical processes, aquatic organisms, and water resource management. To study these hydrologic changes, RMRS scientist Charles Luce and his team developed a database of flow metrics for streams in the western U.S. under historical conditions and climate change scenarios. These are based on daily simulations of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) macroscale hydrologic model produced by the University of Washington Climate Impacts Group.

The Rocky Mountain Research Station used model outputs to calculate a set of summary flow metrics to describe key attributes of the flow regime for each stream segment in the 1:100,000 scale National Hydrography Dataset (NHDPlus version 2) in the western U.S. Datasets are available for a historical period (1977-2006), the 2040's, and the 2080's. Future datasets (2040's and 2080's) are based on the ensemble mean of ten global climate models associated with the A1B emissions scenario.