This study explores key aspects of water usage in Virginia via a broad-scale analysis of multiple water users through thirty years of time-series records from the Virginia Water Use Data System. A full spectrum of users is considered, including water used for energy, industrial, agricultural and municipal applications. The extent of the relationship between the volume of water used and drivers like economic and climatic conditions are not well defined in humid environments like Virginia. Mann-Kendall testing is applied to identify water use trends through time both statewide and at the county level. A panel regression is employed to identify relationships between water use and explanatory variables of climatic and economic conditions, both spatially and temporally. Key trends include that industrial and energy sector water withdrawals per facility are significantly decreasing over time. Water used for agricultural applications was found to increase on warmer than average years and decrease on wetter than average years, indicating the panel regression methodology successfully demonstrated and quantified intuitive trends. Interestingly, municipal and industrial water usage had a statistically significant relationship with the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality in rainfall distribution, indicating intraseasonal variability may play an important role in water use trends that is not apparent using seasonal averages alone. Overall, this work contributes to the understanding of water use trends at the state level for Virginia, and better characterizes long-term trends and short-term variability in water withdrawal. / MS / This work applies statistical methods to better understand water use trends through time and across the state of Virginia. The primary data source is a record spanning thirty years of water use, reported by more than 2,400 users in all counties of Virginia to the Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ). This analysis includes a full spectrum of water sectors, including water used domestically (municipal), water used for manufacturing (industrial), agriculture applications and water used in the production of energy. The first objective is to determine if water use, normalized by changes in population and the number of users, is increasing or decreasing over time for each county in Virginia.
Once the trends through time are identified, the next objective is to better define the underlying factors (explanatory variables) which may drive changes in how much water is used. One potential factor includes changes in the economic conditions. For example, the economic recession in 2008 caused some decline in industrial production. Did this likewise cause a reduction in water used by industrial facilities? Particularly, the analysis considers how the annual average temperature, total annual precipitation, rainfall variability and the length of heatwaves that occur in a given year might impact the amount of water withdrawn in that year. This work addresses a knowledge gap about how water use is impacted by climate change in humid environments like Virginia.
This work aims to establish whether or not there is a significant relationship between time, climate, economic change and water use in Virginia. The trends identified in this study will support the management of water supplies in Virginia and the development a more informed state water resources plan.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/95911 |
| Date | 11 June 2018 |
| Creators | DiCarlo, Morgan |
| Contributors | Biological Systems Engineering, Shortridge, Julie, Ellis, Andrew, Sridhar, Venkataramana |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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