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Nicolas P. Zégre
Forestry & Natural Resources, West Virginia University, 334 Percival Hall, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA

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Journal article
Published: 08 February 2020 in Water
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Forested catchments are critical sources of freshwater used by society, but anthropogenic climate change can alter the amount of precipitation partitioned into streamflow and evapotranspiration, threatening their role as reliable fresh water sources. One such region in the eastern US is the heavily forested central Appalachian Mountains region that provides fresh water to local and downstream metropolitan areas. Despite the hydrological importance of this region, the sensitivity of forested catchments to climate change and the implications for long-term water balance partitioning are largely unknown. We used long-term historic (1950–2004) and future (2005–2099) ensemble climate and water balance data and a simple energy–water balance model to quantify streamflow sensitivity and project future streamflow changes for 29 forested catchments under two future Relative Concentration Pathways. We found that streamflow is expected to increase under the low-emission pathway and decrease under the high-emission pathway. Furthermore, despite the greater sensitivity of streamflow to precipitation, larger increases in atmospheric demand offset increases in precipitation-induced streamflow, resulting in moderate changes in long-term water availability in the future. Catchment-scale results are summarized across basins and the region to provide water managers and decision makers with information about climate change at scales relevant to decision making.

ACS Style

Brandi Gaertner; Rodrigo Fernandez; Nicolas Zegre. Twenty-First Century Streamflow and Climate Change in Forest Catchments of the Central Appalachian Mountains Region, US. Water 2020, 12, 453 .

AMA Style

Brandi Gaertner, Rodrigo Fernandez, Nicolas Zegre. Twenty-First Century Streamflow and Climate Change in Forest Catchments of the Central Appalachian Mountains Region, US. Water. 2020; 12 (2):453.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Brandi Gaertner; Rodrigo Fernandez; Nicolas Zegre. 2020. "Twenty-First Century Streamflow and Climate Change in Forest Catchments of the Central Appalachian Mountains Region, US." Water 12, no. 2: 453.

Journal article
Published: 02 August 2019 in Science of The Total Environment
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Forest headwater catchments are critical sources of water, but climate change and disturbance may threaten their ability to produce reliable and abundant water supplies. Quantifying how climate change and forest disturbances individually and interactively alter streamflow provides important insights into the stability and availability of water derived from headwater catchments that are particularly sensitive to change. We used long-term water balance data, forest inventory measurements, and a multiple-methods approach using Budyko decomposition and paired catchment models to assess how climate change and forest disturbances interact to alter streamflow in five headwater catchments located along a disturbance gradient in the Appalachian Mountains, USA. We found that disturbance was the dominant driver of streamflow changes; disturbed catchments were more sensitive to climate change than the undisturbed catchment; and disturbance was an important factor for a catchment's sensitivity to climate change, principally through changes in species composition and xylem anatomy. Streamflow sensitivity to climate change increased with increasing proportion of diffuse porous species, suggesting that not all disturbances are equal when it comes to streamflow sensitivity to climate change. Climate change effects were masked by disturbance in catchments with high magnitude/low frequency disturbances and amplified in a catchment with low magnitude/high frequency disturbance. Furthermore, critical assumptions of Budyko decomposition were assessed to evaluate the efficacy of applying decomposition to the headwater scale. Our study demonstrates the efficacy and usefulness of applying decomposition to scales potentially useful to resource managers and decision makers. Our study contributes to a more thorough understanding about the impacts of climate change on disturbed headwater catchments that will help managers to better prepare for and adapt to future changes.

ACS Style

David Young; Nicolas Zégre; Pamela Edwards; Rodrigo Fernandez. Assessing streamflow sensitivity of forested headwater catchments to disturbance and climate change in the central Appalachian Mountains region, USA. Science of The Total Environment 2019, 694, 133382 .

AMA Style

David Young, Nicolas Zégre, Pamela Edwards, Rodrigo Fernandez. Assessing streamflow sensitivity of forested headwater catchments to disturbance and climate change in the central Appalachian Mountains region, USA. Science of The Total Environment. 2019; 694 ():133382.

Chicago/Turabian Style

David Young; Nicolas Zégre; Pamela Edwards; Rodrigo Fernandez. 2019. "Assessing streamflow sensitivity of forested headwater catchments to disturbance and climate change in the central Appalachian Mountains region, USA." Science of The Total Environment 694, no. : 133382.

Journal article
Published: 05 July 2016 in Land
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Few land disturbances impact watersheds at the scale and extent of mountaintop removal mining (MTM). This practice removes forests, soils and bedrock to gain access to underground coal that results in likely permanent and wholesale changes that impact catchment hydrology, geochemistry and ecosystem health. MTM is the dominant driver of land cover changes in the central Appalachian Mountains region of the United States, converting forests to mine lands and burying headwater streams. Despite its dominance on the landscape, determining the hydrological impacts of MTM is complicated by underground coal mines that significantly alter groundwater hydrology. To provide insight into how coal mining impacts headwater catchments, we compared the hydrologic responses of an MTM and forested catchment using event rainfall-runoff analysis, modeling and isotopic approaches. Despite similar rainfall characteristics, hydrology in the two catchments differed in significant ways, but both catchments demonstrated threshold-mediated hydrologic behavior that was attributed to transient storage and the release of runoff from underground mines. Results suggest that underground mines are important controls for runoff generation in both obviously disturbed and seemingly undisturbed catchments and interact in uncertain ways with disturbance from MTM. This paper summarizes our results and demonstrates the complexity of catchment hydrology in the MTM region.

ACS Style

Andrew J. Miller; Nicolas Zégre. Landscape-Scale Disturbance: Insights into the Complexity of Catchment Hydrology in the Mountaintop Removal Mining Region of the Eastern United States. Land 2016, 5, 22 .

AMA Style

Andrew J. Miller, Nicolas Zégre. Landscape-Scale Disturbance: Insights into the Complexity of Catchment Hydrology in the Mountaintop Removal Mining Region of the Eastern United States. Land. 2016; 5 (3):22.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Andrew J. Miller; Nicolas Zégre. 2016. "Landscape-Scale Disturbance: Insights into the Complexity of Catchment Hydrology in the Mountaintop Removal Mining Region of the Eastern United States." Land 5, no. 3: 22.

Journal article
Published: 28 April 2014 in JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association
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In the Appalachian region of the eastern United States, mountaintop removal mining (MTM) is a dominant driver of land‐cover change, impacting 6.8% of the largely forested 4.86 million ha coal fields region. Recent catastrophic flooding and documented biological impairment downstream of MTM has drawn sharp criticism to this practice. Despite its extent, scale, and use since the 1970s, the impact of MTM on hydrology is poorly understood. Therefore, the goal of this study was a multiscale evaluation to establish the nature of hydrologic impacts associated with MTM. To quantify the extent of MTM, land‐cover change over the lifetime of this practice is estimated for a mesoscale watershed in southern West Virginia. To assess hydrologic impacts, we conducted long‐term trend analyses to evaluate for systematic changes in hydrology at the mesoscale, and conducted hydrometric and response time modeling to characterize storm‐scale responses of a MTM‐impacted headwater catchment. Results show a general trend in the conversion of forests to mines, and significant decreases in maximum streamflow and variability, and increases in base‐flow ratio attributed to valley fills and deep mine drainage. Decreases in variability are shown across spatial and temporal scales having important implications for water quantity and quality. However, considerable research is necessary to understand how MTM impacts hydrology. In an effort to inform future research, we identify existing knowledge gaps and limitations of our study.

ACS Style

Nicolas P. Zegre; Andrew J. Miller; Aaron Maxwell; Samuel J. Lamont. Multiscale Analysis of Hydrology in a Mountaintop Mine-Impacted Watershed. JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association 2014, 50, 1257 -1272.

AMA Style

Nicolas P. Zegre, Andrew J. Miller, Aaron Maxwell, Samuel J. Lamont. Multiscale Analysis of Hydrology in a Mountaintop Mine-Impacted Watershed. JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association. 2014; 50 (5):1257-1272.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Nicolas P. Zegre; Andrew J. Miller; Aaron Maxwell; Samuel J. Lamont. 2014. "Multiscale Analysis of Hydrology in a Mountaintop Mine-Impacted Watershed." JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association 50, no. 5: 1257-1272.

Review
Published: 18 March 2014 in Water
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Mountaintop mining and valley fill (MTM/VF) coal extraction, practiced in the Central Appalachian region, represents a dramatic landscape-scale disturbance. MTM operations remove as much as 300 m of rock, soil, and vegetation from ridge tops to access deep coal seams and much of this material is placed in adjacent headwater streams altering landcover, drainage network, and topography. In spite of its scale, extent, and potential for continued use, the effects MTM/VF on catchment hydrology is poorly understood. Previous reviews focus on water quality and ecosystem health impacts, but little is known about how MTM/VF affects hydrology, particularly the movement and storage of water, hence the hydrologic processes that ultimately control flood generation, water chemistry, and biology. This paper aggregates the existing knowledge about the hydrologic impacts of MTM/VF to identify areas where further scientific investigation is needed. While contemporary surface mining generally increases peak and total runoff, the limited MTM/VF studies reveal significant variability in hydrologic response. Significant knowledge gaps relate to limited understanding of hydrologic processes in these systems. Until the hydrologic impact of this practice is better understood, efforts to reduce water quantity and quality problems and ecosystem degradation will be difficult to achieve.

ACS Style

Andrew J. Miller; Nicolas P. Zegre. Mountaintop Removal Mining and Catchment Hydrology. Water 2014, 6, 472 -499.

AMA Style

Andrew J. Miller, Nicolas P. Zegre. Mountaintop Removal Mining and Catchment Hydrology. Water. 2014; 6 (3):472-499.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Andrew J. Miller; Nicolas P. Zegre. 2014. "Mountaintop Removal Mining and Catchment Hydrology." Water 6, no. 3: 472-499.

Journal article
Published: 31 May 2013 in Applied Geography
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Mountaintop removal mining is a dominant driver of land use/land cover changes in the Appalachian Region of the eastern United States and is expected to increase in scale in the coming decades. While several studies quantify land use/land cover changes attributed to traditional surface mining and at regional scales, no studies we are aware of focus specifically on mountaintop removal/valley fill mining practices at the watershed scale. Further, despite its scale and extent, its impact on runoff, particularly at larger spatial scales (103 km2), is poorly understood due to the complex relationships between climate, land use, and hydrology. To explore the impacts of this practice at broader scales, we estimated land use/land cover changes using Landsat 5 TM imagery over five periods between 1994 and 2010; used a simple rainfall–runoff model to estimate hydrologic response time; and conducted non-parametric trend analyses on annual hydrologic metrics (streamflow, Q/P, response time) for the Big Coal River watershed located in the southern West Virginia coalfields. No statistically significant trends were detected in any of the timeseries. The lack of detectable trends and correlations between land use changes and hydrology at the basin scale are not entirely unexpected due to the history and mosaic of land cover changes that span timescales larger than our study period. Further interannual variation likely overwhelms our ability to detect potential changes using monotonic trend analysis at the annual time scale, particularly in light of strong streamflow seasonality. Future studies therefore should include different methods of change detection applied to different timescales to more appropriately account seasonal and interannual variations. Until the significance of this practice on water resources (quality and quality) are understood, efforts to reduce the environmental problems associated with mountaintop mining will be difficult to achieve.

ACS Style

Nicolas P. Zégre; Aaron Maxwell; Sam Lamont. Characterizing streamflow response of a mountaintop-mined watershed to changing land use. Applied Geography 2013, 39, 5 -15.

AMA Style

Nicolas P. Zégre, Aaron Maxwell, Sam Lamont. Characterizing streamflow response of a mountaintop-mined watershed to changing land use. Applied Geography. 2013; 39 ():5-15.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Nicolas P. Zégre; Aaron Maxwell; Sam Lamont. 2013. "Characterizing streamflow response of a mountaintop-mined watershed to changing land use." Applied Geography 39, no. : 5-15.

Original articles
Published: 24 October 2011 in Hydrological Sciences Journal
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Hydrological data may be temporally autocorrelated requiring autoregressive process parameters to be estimated. Current statistical methods for hydrological change detection in paired watershed studies rely on prediction intervals, but the current form of prediction intervals does not include all appropriate sources of variation. Corrected prediction intervals for the analysis of paired watershed study data that include variation associated with covariance and linear model parameter estimation are presented. We provide an example of their application to data from the Hinkle Creek Paired Watershed Study located in the western Cascade foothills of Southern Oregon, USA. Research implications of using the correct prediction limits and incorporating the estimation uncertainty of autoregressive process parameters are discussed. Editor D. Koutsoyiannis Citation Som, N.A., Zégre, N.P., Ganio, L.M. and Skaugset, A.E., 2012. Corrected prediction intervals for change detection in paired watershed studies. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 57 (1), 134–143.

ACS Style

Nicholas A. Som; Nicolas P. Zégre; Lisa M. Ganio; Arne E. Skaugset. Corrected prediction intervals for change detection in paired watershed studies. Hydrological Sciences Journal 2011, 57, 134 -143.

AMA Style

Nicholas A. Som, Nicolas P. Zégre, Lisa M. Ganio, Arne E. Skaugset. Corrected prediction intervals for change detection in paired watershed studies. Hydrological Sciences Journal. 2011; 57 (1):134-143.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Nicholas A. Som; Nicolas P. Zégre; Lisa M. Ganio; Arne E. Skaugset. 2011. "Corrected prediction intervals for change detection in paired watershed studies." Hydrological Sciences Journal 57, no. 1: 134-143.

Journal article
Published: 23 November 2010 in Water Resources Research
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ACS Style

Nicolas Zégre; Arne E. Skaugset; Nicholas A. Som; Jeffrey Mcdonnell; Lisa M. Ganio. In lieu of the paired catchment approach: Hydrologic model change detection at the catchment scale. Water Resources Research 2010, 46, 1 .

AMA Style

Nicolas Zégre, Arne E. Skaugset, Nicholas A. Som, Jeffrey Mcdonnell, Lisa M. Ganio. In lieu of the paired catchment approach: Hydrologic model change detection at the catchment scale. Water Resources Research. 2010; 46 (11):1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Nicolas Zégre; Arne E. Skaugset; Nicholas A. Som; Jeffrey Mcdonnell; Lisa M. Ganio. 2010. "In lieu of the paired catchment approach: Hydrologic model change detection at the catchment scale." Water Resources Research 46, no. 11: 1.