CLIMATE CHANGE’S POSSIBLE IMPACTS ON GROUND WATER RECHARGE RATES IN SOUTHWEST ARKANSAS, NORTHWEST LOUISIANA AND NORTHEAST TEXAS

The possibility of climatic change has been considered for decades and by hundreds of authors. Climatic models often predict that for the central United States within the next 100 years there will be an increase of temperature and often a decrease of precipitation. The study area of Southwest Arkansas (Columbia, Lafayette and Miller Counties), Northwest Louisiana (Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Claiborne, De Soto, and Red River Parishes), and Northeast Texas (Bowie, Camp, Cass, Delta, Franklin, Greggs, Harrison, Hopkins, Lamar, Marion, Morris, Panola, Red River, Rusk, Shelby, Smith, Titus, Upshur, and Wood Counties) area experienced a prolonged drought between April 2010 and December 2012, during this drought temperatures were also above normal. This drought impacted the Wilcox Aquifer and others in the study area of southwest Arkansas; northwest Louisiana and northeast Texas by reducing recharge rates. Was this drought typical of warmer conditions or is it unusual?

Uniformitarianism states that the present is the key to the past in terms of neither geologic forces which differ neither in kind nor energy from those now in operation. For this study this principle was applied to the future, so that past results could be used for future prediction of conditions. This study considers past records of temperature/rainfall/stream discharges as an indicator of possible future conditions. Temperature and precipitation data was collected from NOA, while stream discharge data for streams in the study area was collected from USGS reports. Are recharge rates as indicated by baseflow analysis dependent on temperature and if so how? The impact on recharge rates was examined by determining baseflow rates for 27 streams within the study area. The streams considered are ones in the area that have at least thirty of years of record and usually have a watershed area between 100 km² and 2000 km².