An Overview of Hydrology and Water Resources Studies on Climate Change: The California Experience

Abstract

There is an increasing threat of potential climate change impacts on water resources. The California water system is especially vulnerable to these impacts due to its dependence on snow accumulation and snowmelt process. Since 1983 there have been almost 50 studies related to the field of climate change impacts on hydrology and water resources in California. These studies can be categorized in three major areas: 1) Those studies that look at the historical trend of streamflows and other geophysical variables in order to determine if there is any evidence of climate change in the historical record; 2) Studies of the potential future effect of climate change on streamflow and; 3) Studies that use those changes in natural runoff to determine their economic, ecologic, or institutional impacts. In this paper we provide a review of these studies explaining at each step the methodological aspects involved. We provide for each category of studies their significant conclusions and potential areas for future work.