One of the ways we compared output for different modeling simulations was by developing a water budget from model results. A water budget is an accounting of inputs, outputs and changes in the amount of water that flows through a project area.  We used modeling output from Willamette Envision to estimate a water budget for the Willamette River Basin (WRB) and how that budget might change over the 21st century in response to climate change and population growth.

The interactive water budget displays inputs and outputs to the water budget in terms of water depth over the whole basin. For example, we estimate that if you summed all the water that falls over the entire basin in a year, and spread it out in an even layer over the whole basin, the water would be 162 cm deep, or just over five feet deep.  We use these depth measurements as a way to compare the relative size of different parts of the water budget in the basin. The thickness of the blue lines in the interactive water budget correspond to the quantity of water that flows through the Willamette Basin, from left to right. The units shown are in of cm3/cm2/year (abbreviated as cm; 1 cm = 235,000 acre-feet).

Users can use a drop down box to view the water balance for different modeling simulations, and the slider to look at how fluxes change during different times of the year. The scenarios on the drop down menu allow users to switch between depictions of the water budget for the past (1950-2010) and for different future scenarios (2070-2100).

Read more about the methods and interpretation of the water budget on the hydrology web page.

Link to the interactive water budget.

Annual water budget for the simulated historical scenario.

The interactive water budget was developed by Roy Haggerty, Charles Preppernau, and Maria Wright.