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ARS Home » Midwest Area » West Lafayette, Indiana » National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #101911
Title: EFFECTS OF DEM GRID RESOLUTION ON EROSION MODELING OF SMALL WATERSHEDS USING A WEPP-GIS INTERFACE

Author
item COCHRANE, THOMAS - PURDUE UNIVERSITY
item Flanagan, Dennis

Submitted to: International Soil Conservation Organization (ISCO)
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/24/1999
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: An interface was developed between the Water Erosion Prediction Project model (WEPP) and the Arc View GIS. Two options, the automatic method and the flow-path method, are provided within this interface to run WEPP using GIS data. The automatic method uses a series of algorithms to automatically extract hillslopes, channels, and other topographic parameters from a digital elevation model (DEM) for the application of the watershed version of WEPP. The flow-path method uses concepts in grid based DEM flow-routing to apply WEPP to all possible flow-paths within the watershed. The two methods were applied to five field size (0.59 to 2.7 ha) research watersheds, two from Watkinsville, Georgia, three from Holly Springs, Mississippi, and one small watershed (29 ha) in Treynor, Iowa. Both methods were evaluated for assessing watershed erosion using different DEM grid resolutions. Simulations were conducted using 1, 3, 5, and 10-meter resolution DEMs for the field sized watersheds and 5, 10, 20, and 30-meter resolutions for the Treynor watershed. Comparisons to actual field measurements of runoff and sediment loss from the watersheds were conducted for simulations at each DEM resolution level.