Storing and managing river flows through reservoirs could dampen or increase climate‐induced fluctuations in streamflow, but interactions between the effects of dams and climate are poorly understood. Here, we examined how dam properties control different facets of flow alteration across the coterminous United States (CONUS), and compared alteration trends between dam‐affected and reference stream gages. We quantified departures from the natural flow regime using 730 stations with long‐term daily discharge data. Dam size and purpose explained high variation in flow alteration, and alteration was particularly severe in water‐stressed regions. Importantly, regulation of river flows by dams often dampened climate‐driven alteration (48% of the flow metrics), particularly in watersheds with positive flow trends; while worsening climatic impacts in other cases (44%), or even having dual effects (8%). Our results show that dam and climate impacts on streamflow need to be assessed jointly, and based on a diverse range of flow regime facets (e.g., event magnitude and duration, frequency, and timing) instead of mean annual flows only. By pairing the USGS streamflow records available from upstream and downstream of 209 dams across the CONUS, we advance the notion that dams amplify flow alteration, but also ameliorate some flow alteration metrics. Understanding such potential and limitations is important in light of climate non‐stationarity and a new wave of damming in developing economies, and will be key to further advancing environmental flow science into the future.
River scientists strive to understand how streamflow regimes vary across space and time because it is fundamental to predicting the impacts of climate change and human activities on riverine ecosystems. Here we tested whether flow periodicity differs between rivers that are regulated or unregulated by large dams, and whether dominant periodicities change over time in response to dam regulation. These questions were addressed by calculating wavelet power at different timescales, ranging from 6 hr to 10 years, across 175 pairs of dam‐regulated and unregulated USGS gages with long‐term discharge data, spanning the conterminous United States. We then focused on eight focal reservoirs with high‐quality and high‐frequency data to examine the spectral signatures of dam‐induced flow alteration and their time‐varying nature. We found that regulation by dams induces changes not only in flow magnitude and variability, but also in the dominant periodicities of a river's flow regime. Our analysis also revealed that dams generally alter multi‐annual and annual periodicity to a higher extent than seasonal or daily periodicity. Based on the focal reservoirs, we illustrate that alteration of flow periodicity is time varying, with dam operations (e.g., daily peaking vs. baseload operation), changes in dam capacity, and environmental policies shifting the relative importance of periodicities over time. Our analysis demonstrates the pervasiveness of human signatures now characterizing the U.S. rivers' flow regimes, and may inform the restoration of environmental periodicity downstream of reservoirs via controlled flow releases—a critical need in light of new damming and dam retrofitting for hydropower globally.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1805293
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10396802
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earth's Future
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2328-4277
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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