Associate Professor Youngstown State University, Ohio, United States
The accelerating impacts of climate change have led to significant fluctuations in the river water levels. Consequently, these changes have adverse effects on aquatic ecosystems, particularly due to alterations in fish habitats in rivers, and tributaries. This research has been conducted to investigate the impact of climate changes on fish habitats by examining three critical hydraulic parameters such as flow, depth, and velocity of the Grand and Chagrin Rivers of Northeast Ohio. A hydrological model was developed using HEC-HMS to investigate the flow regimes, peak flows, and duration of different flow conditions under various climatic conditions. The model has been calibrated and validated at the United States Geological Services (USGS) Gauging station located in Painesville and Willoughby for Grand River and Chagrin River, respectively using Gridded Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) Precipitation data. The HEC-HMS model was calibrated and validated using historical data, achieving a Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) greater than 0.7 and a percent bias of less than 15%, ensuring high model accuracy. Similarly, the hydraulic model calibrated for Grand River has an NSE greater than 0.5, percent bias within ±10%, providing reliable hydraulic predictions for a comprehensive assessment of habitat suitability for fish. The hydraulic variables in the river for future climate have been evaluated using the data from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phases 5 and 6 (CMIP5 and CMIP6). This will allow us to predict changes in future habitats under different climatic conditions compared to historical climate.
