Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Peak Stream Discharge for Watersheds of Varying Sizes in the Coastal Plain of Virginia

Civil infrastructure systems have traditionally been designed assuming stationarity in precipitation. However, climate change is making this assumption invalid, affecting both existing infrastructure designed assuming stationarity and the design of new infrastructure. Although many studies have analyzed potential increases in precipitation due to climate change, fewer have attempted to translate these changes into the impact of stream discharge in a way that could be incorporated into infrastructure design. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the potential impact of climate change on both rainfall and peak discharge to aid in bridge and road infrastructure design. Results showed that the median increase in model-derived rainfall intensity across the selected rainfall stations in Virginia was 10%–30% for the midcentury (centered on 2045) and 10%–40% for the end of the century (centered on 2085), with the higher increase for the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) scenario compared with the RCP4.5 scenario. A regression analysis was performed to relate peak discharge to watershed size for midcentury and end-of-century periods for the study area. In terms of peak discharge, smaller watersheds (25 km2), the increase in peak discharge decreased as the watershed size increased, suggesting a dampening effect for larger watersheds in this coastal plain region of Virginia. For a watershed size of 1,700 km2, the largest watershed included in the analysis, the percent increase in peak discharge for a 100-year return period was 14% and 39% during the midcentury, and 16% and 40% at the end of the century, for the two emission scenarios. These findings and the general methodology used in the study can aid transportation and water resources engineers in incorporating changing rainfall impacts into assessing current infrastructure and designing future infrastructure. They can also help to prioritize resources for more costly hydraulic analyses of potentially vulnerable infrastructure.