Abstract
Enhanced reservoir evaporation has become an emerging concern regarding water loss, especially when compounded with the ever-increasing water demand. In this study, we evaluated the evaporation rates and losses for 678 major reservoirs (representing nearly 90% of total storage capacity) in the Contiguous United States over historical baseline (1980–2019), near-term (2020–2039), and mid-term (2040–2059) future periods. The evaporation rate was estimated using the Lake Evaporation Model (LEM), an advanced lake evaporation model that addresses both heat storage and fetch effects, driven by multi-ensemble downscaled Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects 6 (CMIP6) projections under the SSP585 emission scenario. The results project that the evaporation loss may increase by 2.5 × 107 m3/yr through the research period (1980–2059). Among all regions, the Rio Grande is projected to have the largest increasing rate in the near-term and mid-term future, with values of 7.11% of 10.25%, respectively. At the seasonal scale, the most significant increase in the evaporation rate is projected during the fall. The evaporation is projected to increase faster than the streamflow over many of the regions in the southwestern US during the summer/fall, suggesting that the shortage of water will be further exacerbated. The climate models contribute the most to the variance, as compared to the other components related to the projection of evaporation losses (e.g., hydrological model, downscaling method, and historical meteorological data set). These findings demonstrate the need to consider accelerated water loss through open water evaporation in long-term water resources planning across various spatiotemporal scales.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e2022EF002961 |
| Journal | Earth's Future |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2023 |
Funding
This study was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office as a part of the SECURE Water Act Section 9505 Assessment. The research used the resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. SCK, SG, DR, and MA are employees of UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the DOE. Accordingly, the publisher, by accepting this article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript or to allow others to do so, for US Government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan). This study was supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office as a part of the SECURE Water Act Section 9505 Assessment. The research used the resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. SCK, SG, DR, and MA are employees of UT‐Battelle, LLC, under contract DE‐AC05‐00OR22725 with the DOE. Accordingly, the publisher, by accepting this article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid‐up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript or to allow others to do so, for US Government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| DOE Public Access Plan | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Science | |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| Water Power Technologies Office | DE‐AC05‐00OR22725 |
Keywords
- CMIP6
- climate change
- evaporation losses
- lake evaporation model
- uncertainty
