Hydrologic Landscape Classification of the U.S.
Description
We apply the hydrologic landscapes (HL) concept to assess the hydrologic vulnerability of the western United States (U.S.) to projected climate conditions. Our goal is to understand the potential impacts for stakeholder-defined interests across large geographic areas. The basic assumption of the HL approach is that catchments that share similar physical and climatic characteristics are expected to have similar hydrologic characteristics. We map climate vulnerability by integrating the HL approach into a retrospective analysis of historical data to assess variability in future climate projections and hydrology, which includes temperature, precipitation, potential evapotranspiration, snow accumulation, climatic moisture, surplus water, and seasonality of water surplus. This paper illustrates how the HL approach can help assess climatic and hydrologic vulnerability across large spatial scales. By combining the HL concept and climate vulnerability analyses, we provide a planning approach that could allow resource managers to consider how future climate conditions may impact important economic and conservation resources. The data in this data set is specifically for the 1971-2000 normal period and summarizes the HL classification for clusters of assessment units for the continental U.S. Note that the assessment units were clustered by the 5-class HL code to minimize the file size.
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Tags
- environment
- 020:094
- natural resources
- united states
- climate
- map files
- water
- ground water