Snowpack Productivity To Surface Water Of The Salt And Verde Watersheds
Presenter: Jessi (Request AM Session) Moeschl P151
Co-Author(s): SRP
Advisor(s): nan
1Hydrology & Atmospheric Sciences
Weather-related events can impact areas hundreds of miles away from the source. A prime example is snowmelt that leads to increased flow downstream in populated areas. The Salt and Verde Rivers are the two main rivers that flow into the Phoenix area and supply the Salt River Project. In March of 2023, sequential storms and rapid snowmelt on the Verde watershed produced significant runoff that ultimately overwhelmed the reservoirs and required a large release into the Salt River. This bred safety issues and unfortunately even fatalities. (e.g. AP 2023). It is therefore critical to accurately predict how much snow remains as potential snowmelt to further plan reservoir and emergency management operations downstream. In this study we show this relationship to be dependent on the elevation and region of the watershed on which the snowmelt occurred. The Salt and Verde watersheds receive different amounts of precipitation and react differently to snowmelt. Generally, the rate at which this occurs is most prominent and notable in the Verde system as it has less storage capacity than the Salt system. Liquid precipitation, i.e. rain, also played a significant role in the study and resulted in larger inflows to the reservoir system than snow water equivalent on the respective watersheds. This poses dangers as well by increasing the rate of melting which increases flow downstream in the populated areas.