1,100-Year Reconstruction of Baseflow for the Santee River, South Carolina, USA Reveals Connection to the North Atlantic Subtropical High

Abstract

Since 2013, extreme floods within the Santee River basin (North/South Carolina, USA) caused $1.5B in damage. The instrumental period, however, is too short to determine if recent extreme events are anomalous within a long-term context. Here, we present reconstructions of storm-, base-, and total streamflow for the Santee River using a multi-species tree-ring network calibrated to flow data during the period 1923–2018. Tree-ring data explained higher variance (r = 0.59; p < 0.01; 900–2018) of instrumental baseflow than total streamflow (r = 0.41; p < 0.01; 1500–2018) or stormflow (r = 0.26; p < 0.05; 1690–2018). Our reconstruction reveals a long-term increase in baseflow over the past millennium. The North Atlantic subtropical high regulates baseflow in the Santee River (r = 0.45; p < 0.01). Recent high levels of baseflow may be connected to the position of the subtropical high, increasing the likelihood of flooding.