Hydrological extremes across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in a changing climate

Abstract

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is projected to experience significant impacts from future climate change and these impacts include but are not limited to increases in extreme precipitation, flooding and droughts. This study investigates the potential impacts of climate change and uncertainties on future floods and low flow conditions in the rivers and streams of Massachusetts. Fourteen downscaled GCM projections under two greenhouse gas concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) are used as inputs into a distributed hydrological model to obtain future streamflow conditions.