Reconnecting Floodplains and Restoring Green Space as a Management Strategy to Minimize Risk and Increase Resilience in the Context of Climate and Landscape Change

This research identified opportunities to manage flows, connections, and landscapes to increase the resilience of human communities and ecosystems. This research identified dynamic and adaptive solutions to managing river flows that allow continued provision of valuable infrastructure services such as flood control, hydropower, and water supply, while also supporting thriving river ecosystems - both today and into the future. The research is directly responsive to the NECSC’s FY15 Science Theme 3: Climate impacts on freshwater resources and ecosystems, Priority 1: Effects of Climate Change on Hydrologic Regimes, Ecological Flows, and Aquatic Connectivity. The goals of the research were threefold: 1) Evaluate the potential impacts of climate change on hydrologic regimes, 2) Determine the flow regime changes that will be required to provide riverine environmental services and any risk associated with these changes, and 3) Explore management alternatives that mitigate potential negative impacts and improve system robustness. Project goals are accomplished by performing the following tasks: 1) Explicitly incorporate land use and climate change projections into hydrologic models to determine effects on stream flow, including changes in streamflow volumes, timing of runoff, and frequency of extreme events; 2) Develop economic and physical measures of floodplain performance that capture the environmental services provided and the losses associated with changing flow regimes, 3) Evaluate how the effectiveness of green infrastructure strategies, including floodplain protection and storage, would alter these effects, 4) Develop a structured decision-making framework that incorporates short-term streamflow forecasting, environmental services damage functions, and adaptive management strategies.

Tool: ResSim Model for upper CT River for quantifying the Maidstone VT floodplain storage

Tool: Hec-Ras model for upper CT River for quantifying Maidstone VT floodplain storage

Award: Bogumila Backiel won Runner-Up Winner for AGU Data Visualization and Story Telling Competition 2017.

Award: Bogumila Backiel won the 2017 AAG Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting, for her paper and presentation at the regional AAG New England meeting, and presented at the nationwide meeting this spring.