Project Number: 5430-11120-009-31
Project Type: Reimbursable

Start Date: Jul 01, 2012
End Date: Sep 30, 2013

Objective:
The purpose of this agreement is for the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to provide technical, science, interface and debugging/programming support for the ARS Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS) installed in 3000 NRCS field offices. WEPS 1.0 is the wind erosion prediction tool for NRCS.

Approach:
1. ARS "Support Related" tasks to be performed on a continual basis during the term of this agreement: 1.1 Provide technical support to NRCS throughout the term of this Agreement, including addressing auto-generated bugs from the field or other problems with the WEPS model. 1.2 Keep the NRCS Responsible Person (currently Rick Fasching) informed of all changes to WEPS as well as progress and resolution on submitted issues. 1.3 Train the key NRCS personnel responsible for WEPS database development and maintenance. 1.4 Support NRCS in maintaining the content of WEPS databases, which include the Crop, Operation, Management and Barrier databases as well as the CLIGEN and WINDGEN records and supporting GIS files. ARS "Feature Request" tasks to be completed: 2. Complete programming to operate WEPS in a “Confidence Interval” (CI) mode. 3. Continue multi-year field and laboratory research required for development of a method to model organic soils in WEPS. 4. Incorporate a "tapered stem" approach into WEPS to better simulate the distribution of stem mass by height for most crops. 5. Revise the WEPS management files to conform to an XML-based format and providing the ability to read that file format natively within the WEPS science code. 6. Discuss possible approaches to handle multi-harvested crops for "calibration" with NRCS. ARS "Feature Request" Task milestones and deliverables: November 1, 2012 - Provide NRCS with a discussion paper covering possible approaches and the pros/cons of each to handling multi-harvested crops for "calibration" within WEPS. December 1, 2012 - Complete programming to operate WEPS in a "Confidence Interval" (CI) mode. February 2013, pending a reevaluation of Project Plan milestones - Incorporate a "tapered stem" approach into WEPS to better simulate the distribution of stem mass by height. February 2013, pending a reevaluation of Project Plan milestones - Revise WEPS management files to conform to an XML-based format and provide WEPS science model the ability to read the new file format.