Future climate and water resource predictions and management strategies over the Northern Great Plains must account for projected changes in land use and land cover. These factors are influenced by emergent biofuels industries, tiling of cropland, changes in current crops under changing climate, and the changes in natural and managed wetlands that cover the region. While some of these surface-based forcings can be readily integrated into regional climate models, such as land management and vegetation cover, others currently are not represented (e.g., closed-basin prairie wetlands) as they are typically sub-grid scale features and are more tightly coupled with land-surface hydrologic processes.

In this study, we will show the impact of converting current land use into those more representative of increased biofuel production and other future management regimes on the regional hydroclimate, over watersheds in Nebraska and North and South Dakota. Additionally, we will explore the role of the region's wetland systems, typically not explicitly resolved in regional climate models.

We will employ WRF as a regional climate model using 2006-2008 NCEP and CCSM analyses for contemporary (control) climate scenarios. Future climate simulations will be forced from CCSM IPCC A2 scenarios. Both contemporary and future batteries will use both “control” phenologies and land management currently used within the native WRF framework and also those using alternative phenologies and land cover. Particular focus will be on changes in calculated surface runoff, regional soil moisture, precipitation patterns and convective potential.