Researchers To Develop New Models for Forecasting Water Availability and Allocation in Kansas
Climate change, driven by human activity, will alter temperatures and rainfall in Kansas in the coming decades. But predictions about the timing and severity of the shift remain inexact.
Now, researchers at the University of Kansas School of Engineering are teaming up with the Kansas Water Office to create models accounting for uncertainty about the state’s future climate so officials who allocate water can better forecast supply and demand of the vital resource.
Their work will expand models used by KWO that depend on data from 1950s drought years in Kansas as a worst-case scenario for water scarcity. The project is supported by a $98,000 WaterSmart Grant from the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation and additional funds from the Kansas Water Office and KU.