| dc.description.abstract | Hydrologic extremes of drought and flooding stress water resources and damage communities in the Red River Basin, located in the south-central U.S. For example, the summer of 2011 was the third driest summer in Oklahoma state history and the driest in Texas state history. These states suffered great loss from prolonged drought conditions, with D4 (exceptional drought) conditions affecting almost the entire state of Texas and nearly seventy percent of Oklahoma. When the long-term drought conditions finally ended in the spring of 2015 as El Niño brought record amounts of precipitation to the region, there were also catastrophic floods that caused loss of life and property. Hydrologic extremes, such as these, have occurred throughout the historical record; however, decision makers need to know how the frequency of these events is expected to vary in a changing climate so that they can mitigate for these impacts and losses. Therefore, the goals of this study focus on how these hydrologic extremes impact water resources in the Red River Basin, how the frequency of such events is expected to change in the future, and how this study can aid local water resource managers and decision makers. To accomplish these goals, this study uses statistically downscaled climate projections of daily minimum and maximum temperature and daily precipitation. These projections were used to first detect the mean daily changes in temperature and precipitation through the end of the century, and then to identify the future trends in heavy precipitation events at the historical 90th and 99th percentiles and severe drought events at a threshold of the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index’s value of less than or equal to -1.5. | en_US |
