ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION 

Climate Change and Urban Drought 

in Northern New Jersey 

By Keith W. Harrington 

Dissertation Director: 
Professor James K. Mitchell 


Water managers need a risk assessment model that will allow them to evaluate the potential for increased drought risks due to anthropogenic climate change. The model that is developed here is intended to strengthen connections between global change science and local water management. It has been devised and tested in a heavily urbanized part of New Jersey that is representative of places where existing water supplies are already under severe pressures. The core of the model is a set of methodologies that assess how drought risks might change in a warming world and that evaluate the vulnerability of water supply systems to drought. 

The assessment of future drought risks takesinto account previous patterns of 

, 

drought and employs a sensitivity analysis of changes as a result of the global warming that is projected by several different General Circulation Models (GCMs). Warming-related changes in temperature and precipitation means for the period 1895-1992 are calculated, and measures of drought severity (Palmer Drought Index) are derived. . 

Water supply system vulnerability is measured in terms of likely changes to the safe yieldldiversion ration (SYDR)of reservoirs. The analysis indicates that 

improvements made during the past decade have reduced drought vuherabiity, and this finding is further supported by evidence about the sufficiency of water supplies during a serious drought which occurred in 1995 after this study was completed. A survey of water managers indicates that most are highly confident about the reliabiity of futurewater supplies in the face of droughts and are skeptical about the likelihood and implications of climate change. 

The model that is developed herein has value as a wmmunications device that is capable of sensitizing water managers to the potential effects of anthropogenic climate change and can provide them with tools to assess the consequences of such changes.