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, we have developed a database of flow metrics for streams across much of the United States (extent shown in Figure 1 of the User Guide) under historical conditions and future climate change scenarios. These are based on daily simulations of the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) macroscale hydrologic model from the the Downscaled CMIP3 and CMIP5 Climate and Hydrology Projections archive.
The U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station and the Office of Sustainability of Climate used these model outputs to calculate a set of summary streamflow 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 conterminous United States. Datasets are available for the historical period (1977-2006), mid-century (2030–2059) and end-of-century (2070–2099). Future projections are based on the average of five CMIP5 global climate models (GCMs) associated with the RCP 8.5 high emissions scenario. Please see the User Guide for more information and important caveats on appropriate use.
Note: This dataset updates the prior dataset, available for the western U.S., only. For information on the prior dataset, see the archived version of this page here.
Climate change is projected to alter the flow regimes of streams and rivers, with consequences for physical processes and aquatic organisms.
The stream flow metric dataset makes it possible to study the effects of droughts, changes in snowpack, water resource impacts, and other hydrologic changes for historical and future climate change scenarios.
Datasets are available for historical conditions (1978-2006) and for future climate change scenarios associated with global climate models.
Flow metrics for the western U.S. for the historical and future time periods, and for the changes between time periods, can be downloaded from the FSGeodata Clearinghouse. These data can also be explored on ArcGIS Online.
Note: This project is an update to a previously available version of streamflow data. The data from the FSGeodata Clearinghouse should be used, but information on the previous version, for the western U.S. is available on this page.
Western Flow Metrics Interactive Map includes: