Developing a Watershed-scale Water Tracking System for Delaware

With its humid, subtropical climate, Delaware is subject to highly variable precipitation patterns that can significantly impact the availability of water resources and lead to droughts and floods. With the potential for increased variability in precipitation in the future due to climate change, as well as increasing pressure from changing population dynamics and land use (i.e., irrigation), Delaware is developing an improved method to track the availability of water resources in the hydrologic system. To accomplish this, a water balance approach at the watershed scale (e.g. HUC12) is being developed to monitor and quantify the availability of water, particularly groundwater in the surficial aquifer. This system will integrate important hydroclimatic indicators, such as precipitation, soil moisture, streamflow, water levels, and evapotranspiration to provide an operational capability for monitoring the relative and absolute availability of water in the environment. Mesonet data are key to building this capability for Delaware. Data from the Delaware Environmental Observing System (DEOS), the official real-time weather and climate monitoring network for Delaware, as well as groundwater well data from the Delaware Geological Survey and other sources are being used to validate and support the modeling framework. Information on the data, methods, and preliminary results will be shared for two pilot watersheds in Delaware, as well as a conceptual framework for building this capability statewide.