Following the Lower Colorado River with the guidance of BASINS 3.0

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Following the Lower Colorado River with the
guidance of BASINS 3.0

• Kristina Schneider
• CE 394K.2

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My Quest and its Detours

• Explore the use of the new BASINS 3.0 to model
  water quality in Lake Austin
• Decided to focus on the SWAT model
• Model entire Austin - Travis CU
• Have to cross some Mountains!

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Destination Austin Travis CU
TMDL Listed Waters for the CU
Source 303(d) Listed Waters Website maintained
by the EPA
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My Guide BASINS 3.0

• Integrated framework using an ArcView Interface.
• Models
• SWAT
• WinHSPF
• QUAL2E
• PLOAD
• Amazing Collection of National Environmental Data
• Updated Data Formats
• Automatic Watershed Delineator

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Source BASINS 3.0 User Manuel
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My Planned Journey The steps to using SWAT

• Activate SWAT, Watershed Delineator, and Land
  Use, Soil Classification and Overlay Tool Ext.
• Delineate the watershed
• Define Land Use and Soils
• Define HRUs
• Define the weather data
• Apply the default input files writer
• Set up (requires specification of simulation
  period, PET calculation method, etc.) and run
  SWAT

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My First Guide BASINS 3.0 Beta from the Web

• Available at http//www.epa.gov/ost/ftp/basins/sy
  stem/BASINS3/areadb3.htm
• Use Assess and Target to get a general picture of
  water quality situation.
• Watershed Delineator works!!
• The Land Use and Soil Classification does not
  appear.

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My First Guide BASINS 3.0 Beta from the Web
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My second Guide BASINS 3.0 Beta from BRC

• Watershed Delineation
• DEM from BASINS 2.0 polygon not exact enough when
  just convert to grid

NHD used to burn-in stream
Delineator created stream
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My second Guide Watershed Delineation

• Tried to use the a NED DEM.
• Possible Problem Projection

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My second Guide Watershed Delineation

• Success!
• Used BASINS DEM polygon but specified the correct
  grid size.
• Tweeked the nhd_rch file

Thanks to Vicki Samuels !
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My second Guide Subbasin Results
Only one Subbasin has attributes?
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My second Guide Land Use and Soil Classification
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My second Guide Land Use and Soil Classification
Reclassified Land Use
Reclassified Soils
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My second Guide SWAT Input Files
The next step is to create the input files for
SWAT.
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My second Guide Basin Error causes LU Soil
error
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What about the other Models?

• HSPF
• Also, requires correctly delineated watersheds.
• QUAL2E
• Needs Permit Compliance System Data
• This dataset is being reformatted for version
  3.0.
• PLOAD
• Manual has no documentation and not easily
  deciphered.

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Travel Guide Watershed Reports
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Travel Guide Watershed Reports

• DO

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Travel Guide Watershed Reports

• Chlordane
• Interesting to note the data is not available
  after 1980. It is possibly not longer an issue.

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Future Travels

• Use BASINS 3.0 when the final release with data
  is available this summer to complete my
  expedition.
• Goal of the study with be to investigate the
  variation of DO with differing land uses.
• If time permits study the nature of nutrient
  loading in the CU.

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Questions?