Response of Climate Change on Urban Watersheds: A Case Study for Las Vegas, NV

The current research is a partnering effort between Southern Illinois University Carbondale and City of Las Vegas to assess the vulnerability to drought, extreme heat, and extreme precipitation. This study focuses on precipitation and usesdifferent climate scenarios from the high-resolution North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP) climate model data to evaluate the existing stormwater infrastructure of the Gowan watershed in the Las Vegas valley. Six NARCCAP modelsconsidered in the study have shown the Gamma distribution as the best fitted from Kolmogorov Smirnov best fit test. Delta change method is adopted to quantify the effect of climate change on storm depth. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers HEC-HMS model is used to evaluate the changes in peak flow, storage, and outflow within the watershed. The findings of the analysis show that the drainage facility of the study area is vulnerable to the related climate change impacts. This studyhelps to quantify the effect of climate change on design storm depth of urban watershed