Management Options During the 2011–2012 Drought on the Apalachicola River: A Systems Dynamic Model Evaluation

The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin (ACF) is a large watershed in the southeastern United States. In 2012, the basin experienced the second year of a severe drought and the third multi-year drought in the last 15 years. During severe droughts, low reservoir and river levels can cause economic and ecological impacts to the reservoir, river, and estuarine ecosystems. During drought, augmenting Apalachicola River discharge through upstream reservoir releases and demand management are intuitive and often-suggested solutions to minimizing downstream effects. We assessed whether the existing reservoir system could be operated to minimize drought impacts on downstream water users and ecosystems through flow augmentation. Our analysis finds that in extreme drought such as observed during 2012, increases in water releases from reservoir storage are insufficient to even increase Apalachicola River discharge to levels observed in the 2007 drought. This suggests that there is simply not enough water available in managed storage to offset extreme drought events. Because drought frequency and intensity is predicted to increase under a variety of climate forecasts, our results demonstrate the need for a critical assessment of how water managers will meet increasing water demands in the ACF. Key uncertainties that should be addressed include (1) identifying the factors that led to extremely low Flint River discharge in 2012, and (2) determining how water “saved” via demand management is allocated to storage or passed to downstream ecosystem needs as part of the ongoing revisions to the ACF Water Control Manual by the US Army Corps of Engineers.