Have a personal or library account? Click to login
RColSim: An R-Based Open-Source Regional Water Management Model for the Columbia River Basin Cover

RColSim: An R-Based Open-Source Regional Water Management Model for the Columbia River Basin

Open Access
|Apr 2026

References

  1. Hand BK, Flint CG, Frissell CA, Muhlfeld CC, Devlin SP, Kennedy BP, et al. A social–ecological perspective for riverscape management in the Columbia River Basin. Front Ecol Environ. 2018;16(S1):S2333. DOI: 10.1002/fee.1752
  2. Wicks-Arshack A, Dunkle M, Matsaw S, Caudill C. An Ecological, Cultural and Legal Review of Pacific Lamprey in the Columbia River Basin. Ida Law Rev. 2018;54:45.
  3. Bankes S. Exploratory Modeling for Policy Analysis. Oper Res. 1993 Jun 1;41(3):43549. DOI: 10.1287/opre.41.3.435
  4. Hamlet AF, Lettenmaier DP. Effects of Climate Change on Hydrology and Water Resources in the Columbia River Basin1. JAWRA J Am Water Resour Assoc. 1999;35(6):1597623. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.1999.tb04240.x
  5. Miles EL, Snover AK, Hamlet AF, Callahan B, Fluharty D. Pacific Northwest Regional Assessment: The Impacts of Climate Variability and Climate Change on the Water Resources of the Columbia River Basin1. JAWRA J Am Water Resour Assoc. 2000 Apr 1;36(2):399420. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2000.tb04277.x
  6. Hamlet AF, Huppert D, Lettenmaier DP. Economic Value of Long-Lead Streamflow Forecasts for Columbia River Hydropower. J Water Resour Plan Manag. 2002 Mar 1;128(2):91101. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9496(2002)128:2(91)
  7. Lee SY, Hamlet AF, Fitzgerald CJ, Burges SJ, Lettenmaier DP. Optimized Flood Control in the Columbia River Basin for a Global Warming Scenario. In American Society of Civil Engineers; 2006 [cited 2013 Sep 24]. p. 25671. Available from: http://cedb.asce.org/cgi/WWWdisplay.cgi?153675.
  8. Hamlet AF, Lee SY, Mickelson KEB, Elsner MM. Effects of projected climate change on energy supply and demand in the Pacific Northwest and Washington State. Clim Change. 2010 Sep 1;102(1–2):10328. DOI: 10.1007/s10584-010-9857-y
  9. Rajagopalan K, Chinnayakanahalli KJ, Stockle CO, Nelson RL, Kruger CE, Brady MP, et al. Impacts of Near-Term Climate Change on Irrigation Demands and Crop Yields in the Columbia River Basin. Water Resour Res. 2018;54(3):215282. DOI: 10.1002/2017WR020954
  10. Cosens B. Transboundary river governance in the face of uncertainty: resilience theory and the Columbia River Treaty. J Land Resour Envtl L. 2010;30:229.
  11. Rupp DE, Abatzoglou JT, Hegewisch KC, Mote PW. Evaluation of CMIP5 20th century climate simulations for the Pacific Northwest USA. J Geophys Res Atmospheres. 2013;118(19):10,88410,906. DOI: 10.1002/jgrd.50843
  12. Islam S ul, Déry SJ, Werner AT. Future Climate Change Impacts on Snow and Water Resources of the Fraser River Basin, British Columbia. J Hydrometeorol. 2016 Nov 30;18(2):47396. DOI: 10.1175/JHM-D-16-0012.1
  13. Krutilla JV. The Columbia River Treaty: The Economics of an International River Basin Development. New York: RFF Press; 2018. 211 p. DOI: 10.4324/9781315064703
  14. Malek K, Reed P, Adam J, Karimi T, Brady M. Water rights shape crop yield and revenue volatility tradeoffs for adaptation in snow dependent systems. Nat Commun. 2020 Jul 10;11(1):1. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17219-z
  15. Herman JD, Reed PM, Wagener T. Time-varying sensitivity analysis clarifies the effects of watershed model formulation on model behavior. Water Resour Res. 2013;49(3):140014. DOI: 10.1002/wrcr.20124
  16. Marchau VAWJ, Walker WE, Bloemen PJTM, Popper SW, editors. Decision Making under Deep Uncertainty: From Theory to Practice [Internet]. Springer International Publishing; 2019 [cited 2021 Jul 12]. Available from: https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030052515.
  17. Moallemi EA, Kwakkel J, de Haan FJ, Bryan BA. Exploratory modeling for analyzing coupled human-natural systems under uncertainty. Glob Environ Change. 2020 Nov 1;65:102186. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102186
  18. Quinn JD, Hadjimichael A, Reed PM, Steinschneider S. Can Exploratory Modeling of Water Scarcity Vulnerabilities and Robustness Be Scenario Neutral? Earths Future. 2020;8(11):e2020EF001650. DOI: 10.1029/2020EF001650
  19. Hall SA, Whittemore A, Padowski J, Yourek M, Yorgey GG, Rajagopalan K, et al. Concurrently assessing water supply and demand is critical for evaluating vulnerabilities to climate change. JAWRA J Am Water Resour Assoc. 2024;60(2):54371. DOI: 10.1111/1752-1688.13192
  20. Malek K, Stöckle C, Chinnayakanahalli K, Nelson R, Liu M, Rajagopalan K, et al. VIC–CropSyst-v2: A regional-scale modeling platform to simulate the nexus of climate, hydrology, cropping systems, and human decisions. Geosci Model Dev. 2017 Aug 17;10(8):305984. DOI: 10.5194/gmd-10-3059-2017
  21. Yourek M, Liu M, Scarpare FV, Rajagopalan K, Malek K, Boll J, et al. Downscaling global land-use/cover change scenarios for regional analysis of food, energy, and water subsystems. Front Environ Sci [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2024 Jan 29];11. Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1055771.
  22. Malek K, Adam J, Yoder J, Givens J, Stockle C, Brady M, et al. Impacts of irrigation efficiency on water-dependent sectors are heavily controlled by region-specific institutions and infrastructures. J Environ Manage. 2021 Dec 15;300:113731. DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.113731
  23. Malek K, Adam J, Stockle C, Brady M, Rajagopalan K. When Should Irrigators Invest in More Water-Efficient Technologies as an Adaptation to Climate Change? Water Resour Res. 2018;54(11):89999032. DOI: 10.1029/2018WR022767
  24. Barnett TP, Adam JC, Lettenmaier DP. Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions. Nature. 2005 Nov;438(7066):3039. DOI: 10.1038/nature04141
  25. Hamlet AF, Mote PW, Clark MP, Lettenmaier DP. Twentieth-Century Trends in Runoff, Evapotranspiration, and Soil Moisture in the Western United States*. J Clim. 2007 Apr;20(8):146886. DOI: 10.1175/JCLI4051.1
  26. Adam JC, Hamlet AF, Lettenmaier DP. Implications of global climate change for snowmelt hydrology in the twenty-first century. Hydrol Process. 2009;23(7):96272. DOI: 10.1002/hyp.7201
  27. Hadjimichael A, Yoon J, Reed P, Voisin N, Xu W. Exploring the Consistency of Water Scarcity Inferences between Large-Scale Hydrologic and Node-Based Water System Model Representations of the Upper Colorado River Basin. J Water Resour Plan Manag. 2023 Feb 1;149(2):04022081. DOI: 10.1061/JWRMD5.WRENG-5522
  28. Zagona EA, Fulp TJ, Shane R, Magee T, Goranflo HM. Riverware: A Generalized Tool for Complex Reservoir System Modeling1. JAWRA J Am Water Resour Assoc. 2001 Aug 1;37(4):91329. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752-1688.2001.tb05522.x
  29. Alcamo J, Döll P, Henrichs T, Kaspar F, Lehner B, Rösch T, et al. Development and testing of the WaterGAP 2 global model of water use and availability. Hydrol Sci J. 2003;48(3):31737. DOI: 10.1623/hysj.48.3.317.45290
  30. Widén-Nilsson E, Halldin S, Xu C yu. Global water-balance modelling with WASMOD-M: Parameter estimation and regionalisation. J Hydrol. 2007 Jun 30;340(1):10518. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2007.04.002
  31. Hanasaki N, Kanae S, Oki T, Masuda K, Motoya K, Shirakawa N, et al. An integrated model for the assessment of global water resources – Part 1: Model description and input meteorological forcing. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci. 2008 Jul 29;12(4):100725. DOI: 10.5194/hess-12-1007-2008
  32. Dang TD, Vu DT, Chowdhury AFMK, Galelli S. A software package for the representation and optimization of water reservoir operations in the VIC hydrologic model. Environ Model Softw. 2020 Apr 1;126:104673. DOI: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2020.104673
  33. Qiu J, Yang Q, Zhang X, Huang M, Adam JC, Malek K. Implications of water management representations for watershed hydrologic modeling in the Yakima River basin. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci Online. 2019 Jan 3;23(1). DOI: 10.5194/hess-23-35-2019
  34. Rougé C, Reed PM, Grogan DS, Zuidema S, Prusevich A, Glidden S, et al. Coordination and control – limits in standard representations of multi-reservoir operations in hydrological modeling. Hydrol Earth Syst Sci. 2021 Mar 19;25(3):136588. DOI: 10.5194/hess-25-1365-2021
  35. Parsons R, Bennett R. Reservoir Operations Management Using a Water Resources Model. 2012 Apr 26;30411. DOI: 10.1061/40875(212)30
  36. Zeff HB, Hamilton AL, Malek K, Herman JD, Cohen JS, Medellin-Azuara J, et al. California’s Food-Energy-Water System: An Open Source Simulation Model of Adaptive Surface and Groundwater Management in the Central Valley. Environ Model Softw. 2021 Apr 5;105052. DOI: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2021.105052
  37. Draper AJ, Munévar A, Arora SK, Reyes E, Parker NL, Chung FI, et al. CalSim: Generalized Model for Reservoir System Analysis. J Water Resour Plan Manag. 2004 Nov 1;130(6):4809. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9496(2004)130:6(480)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jors.406 | Journal eISSN: 2049-9647
Language: English
Submitted on: Nov 23, 2021
|
Accepted on: Mar 10, 2026
|
Published on: Apr 1, 2026
Published by: Ubiquity Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 issue per year

© 2026 Keyvan Malek, Matthew Yourek, Jennifer Adam, Alan Hamlet, Kirti Rajagopalan, Patrick Reed, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.