RESPEC Project

The effects of future climate change and future residential and training area development all have important management implications for military installations. BASINS.MIL, a military-enhanced version of the BASINS modeling system, provides the tools and methods to help watershed managers understand and manage the potential impacts (combined or separate) of climate change and land-use change on water resources at the watershed scale.  Moreover, because climate and residential development can result in similar types of impacts (e.g., higher peaks and lower low flow conditions), managing land-use impacts is an important adaptive strategy for increasing resilience to climate change.

The objective of this climate non-stationarity  assessment was to demonstrate the usefulness of BASINS.MIL model methodologies and results in enabling military planners to characterize changes in hydrology and sediment that may result from changed climate and future land use as they are represented in plausible change scenarios. The climate change scenario and modeling ensemble that were used originate from widely respected climate scientists and modelers.  A plausible future land-use scenario for Fort Benning’s largest watershed was formulated with guidance from the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program. This task is the first demonstration of using the HSPF model to assess potential effect on the military from environmental impacts that result from climate non-stationarity.