Pooled Monitoring Initiative’s Restoration Research Award Program - Award 19278 - Climate Change Impacts to Restoration Practices

Sep 5, 2026

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Pooled Monitoring Initiative’s Restoration Research Award Program investigates how climate change could alter stormwater practices, stream restoration design, and environmental site design (ESD) performance. The work compares global climate model outputs, evaluates bias introduced by downscaling to local and fine time scales, and examines how rainfall intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) results relate to continuous climate simulations. Findings indicate systematic biases across climate archives, differing IDF projections, and likely resilience limits for existing ESD requirements during future extreme events.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time8 min

AccessFree to download

Climate Change Impacts to Restoration Practices

Research questions

Issues addressed

Project findings

Recommendations

Pooled Monitoring Initiative’s Restoration Research Award Program Project Title Lead Entity The Pooled Monitoring Initiative pools resources to support scientists who answer key restoration questions posed by the regulatory and practitioner communities. The research teams then provide the answers back to those who asked the questions for direct application. The goal of the program is to answer these key restoration questions that serve as a barrier to watershed restoration project implementation. Questions? See [cbtrust.org/grants/restoration](cbtrust.org/grants/restoration)research/ Climate Change Impacts to Restoration Practices Dr. Jon Butcher, Tetra Tech Partners David Sample, Tess Thompson, Sami Towsif-Khan, Virginia Tech Research questions Climate change models predict that frequency and intensity of rain events will increase, that growing season will lengthen, and that other processes related to the Chesapeake community’s approved set of BMPs will change. Should standards for stormwater practices, stream restoration, and other BMPs also change (e.g., plan to treat a two-inch rain event versus a one-inch rain event; design stream restoration practices for more frequent storms)? Issues addressed There are multiple global climate models (GCMs) and each model was run for multiple warming scenarios. Further variability is introduced by ways in which the model output is downscaled to a local spatial scale and daily or finer time scale relevant to evaluation of stormwater practices. We need to look across the range of predictions to evaluate potential future risks. In prior work for CBT we developed methods and applied them across Maryland to update the rainfall intensity-durationfrequency (IDF) curves used in stormwater design based on GCM output with local bias correction. In the current work we address three important issues: 1. To what extent does downscaling method bias results? 2. Do Maryland's Environmental Site Design (ESD) requirements need to be changed to maintain similar levels of hydrologic control in a warming world? 3. How do results for protecting stream stability based on IDF analysis compare to continuous simulations of future climate? Project findings Different commonly used downscaled climate archives do contain systematic relative biases . IDF calculations (e.g., the depth of a future 10-yr, 24-hr rainfall event) differ depending on whether the LOCA, MACA, or CORDEX archive is used. There is no “right” answer for future climate, but potential risks should be evaluated across multiple products. Award \# 19278 Pooled Monitoring Initiative’s Restoration Research Award Program Project Title Lead Entity The Pooled Monitoring Initiative pools resources to support scientists who answer key restoration questions posed by the regulatory and practitioner communities. The research teams then provide the answers back to those who asked the questions for direct application. The goal of the program is to answer these key restoration questions that serve as a barrier to watershed restoration project implementation. Questions? See [cbtrust.org/grants/restoration](cbtrust.org/grants/restoration)research/ Climate Change Impacts to Restoration Practices Dr. Jon Butcher, Tetra Tech Partners David Sample, Tess Thompson, Sami Towsif-Khan, Virginia Tech Project findings ESD specifications are likely to perform according to design criteria under future climate • Keep runoff from developed sites consistent with natural runoff from 1-year, 24-hr storm • Treat water quality from a 95th percentile 24-hr event Little increase projected for 24-hr events with recurrence of 1-year or less. But, large increases in more extreme events suggests problems Continuous simulation suggests problems for maintaining stream stability. We performed detailed simulations of hydrology and sediment transport in a well-studied stream with ESD-compliant BMPs in Clarksburg, MD and ran t

FAQs

What central restoration problem does this award program aim to solve?

It targets key restoration questions that act as barriers to watershed restoration project implementation by linking science outputs to direct regulatory and practitioner needs.

Why do downscaling choices matter for climate projections used in restoration design?

Multiple global climate models and warming scenarios are further varied by downscaling methods to local spatial scales and finer time steps relevant to stormwater evaluation, creating uncertainty that must be assessed across prediction ranges.

What do the findings suggest about ESD specifications under future climate conditions?

ESD specifications are likely to meet design criteria only under current assumptions; extreme-event effects may limit resilience, and retrofitting existing systems may better reduce channel degradation than matching conditions from a single historical event.

Sep 5, 2026

Upload by Himbo