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ARS Home » Midwest Area » West Lafayette, Indiana » National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #113449
Title: APPLICATION OF THE WEPP MODEL WITH DIGITAL GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Author
item Flanagan, Dennis
item RENSCHLER, C - PURDUE UNIVERSITY
item COCHRANE, T - BOLIVIA

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/3/2000
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: WEPP is a process-based continuous simulation erosion model developed by the United States Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service. The model can be applied to small (1 to 500 ha) watersheds and hillslope profiles within those watersheds. One limitation to application of WEPP (or other models) to the field or farm scale is the difficulty in determining the watershed structure, which may be composed of multiple channels and profiles (and potentially other features as well). This presentation will describe current efforts to link the WEPP model with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and utilize Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data to generate automatically the necessary topographic inputs for erosion model simulations. The work described here involves linkage of the WEPP model with the ArcView GIS (software developed by Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.) and TOPAZ (TOpographic PArameteriZation tool, also developed by the USDA- Agricultural Research Service). TOPAZ was used to delineate watersheds, locate channels, delineate hillslope profiles, and provide information on flow paths within the profiles. New techniques were developed and evaluated to determine representative slope profile inputs based upon the flow paths. ArcView was used to process and display the erosion model inputs and outputs. Results of WEPP model applications will be presented comparing manual and automated techniques, as well as observed data for small research watersheds. Also, we will discuss the possibilities of using a variety of digital elevation data sources as input to the automated technique, and the impact on erosion model outputs.