Results and code for "Spatial Analysis of Future Climate Risk to Stormwater Infrastructure"

This resource archives Python code and results supporting the paper "Spatial Analysis of Future Climate Risk to Stormwater Infrastructure". The abstract for this paper follows: Climate change is expected to result in more intense precipitation events that will affect the performance and design requirements of stormwater infrastructure. Such changes will vary spatially, and climate models provide a range of estimates of the effects on events of different intensities and recurrence. Infrastructure performance should be evaluated against the expected range of events, not just rare extremes. We present a national-scale, spatially detailed screening assessment of the potential effects of hydroclimatic change on precipitation, stormwater runoff, and potential effects on design requirements. This is accomplished through adjustment relative to multiple future climate scenarios of rainfall intensity-duration-frequency analyses presented in NOAA Atlas 14, which are commonly used in infrastructure design. Future precipitation results are estimated for each Atlas 14 station (these currently do not include the Pacific Northwest). Results are interpolated using a geographically conditioned regression kriging approach to provide information about potential climate change impacts in a format more directly useful to local stormwater managers. The intensity of events with 2-year or greater recurrence is likely to increase in most areas of the U.S. leading to increased runoff and potential need for increased BMP volumes. Changes in more frequent events (e.g., the 90th percentile event) commonly used in design of green infrastructure are relatively less.