A precipitation-runoff modeling system for evaluating the hydrologic impacts of energy resouces development

A modular design precipitation-runoff modeling system is being developed for evaluating the impacts of various combinations of precipitation, climate, and land use on runoff, sediment yields, and general basin hydrology. Normal and extreme rainfall and snowmelt events will be simulted for various combinations of land use to evaluate changes in water-balance relationships, soil-water relationships, flow regimes, flood peaks and volumes, sediment yields and groundwater recharge. A major component of the modeling system is snowmelt runoff. Initial development, testing, and verification of the snowmelt components are being conducted in the major coal and oil-shale regions of the western United States. A number of representative study basins have been instrumented in each region to provide data on basin hydrology before, during, and after energy resource extraction. An overview of the modeling system is presented and the snowmelt components are described in detail.