Summary ABSTRACT In recent years numerous site-specific water quality and quantity studies have been conducted. However none of these addressed questions on the national/regional scale concerning policy decision options for water quality and quantity. The HUMUS (Hydrologic Unit Model for the United States) project improves on existing technologies for making national and ... regional water resource assessment considering both current and projected management conditions. The major components of the HUMUS project are: 1) a basin scale Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to model the surface and sub-surface water quality and quantity, 2) a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to collect, manage, analyze and display the spatial and temporal inputs and outputs, and 3) relational databases needed to manage the non-spatial data and drive the models. The HUMUS project will simulate and validate approximately 350 6-digit hydrologic unit areas that have been delineated by the USGS for the 18 major river basins in the U.S. The emphasis of this paper will be on the formulation of the HUMUS project and a sample application to one of the 8-digit hydrologic units located in the Texas Gulf river basin. INTRODUCTION
Water quality and quantity are ever-increasing environmental concerns throughout the world. Damage from soil erosion alone, which does not include nutrient and pesticide contamination, is estimated at several tens of billion dollars in the United States (Committee on Conservation Needs and Opportunities, 1986). The distributed nature of spatial and temporal processes involved often limit identification and assessment of water quality and quantity. Once the water quality problems are identified, there are several techniques of controlling and regulating the polluting activities. Models are often used to evaluate the best available alternative control measures. Type, scale, and level of application of these models depend on the kind of questions to be answered. General rules or solutions infeasible since water quality problems are primarily site-specific.
HUMUS SYSTEM
The Resources Conservation Act of 1977 as amended (RCA), requires the Department of Agriculture to appraise the status, condition, and trends in the uses and conservation of non-federal soil and water related natural resources. The HUMUS project has been designed to provide the technical basis for conducting the appraisal of water resources for the 1997 RCA Appraisal Report. It is intended to provide better information than has ever been obtained before about the uses of water on irrigated and non-irrigated agricultural lands and of the physical and economic effects of changing agricultural practices and cropping patterns on future water needs and supplies.
Recent advancements in computer-based natural resource simulation technologies give opportunity to do comprehensive regional and national water resources assessments. The integrated HUMUS system components are shown in Figure 1. The components include: 1) Simulation Models, 2) Spatial Database System (GIS) and 3) Relational Database System. The HUMUS system is expected to be a prototype for similar uses of the models for other national natural resources policy development forums and for uses of the technology at the regional level by various agencies involved in natural resources concerns. For approximately 2,150 watershed areas (the 8-digit hydrologic accounting units delineated by the Water Resources Council in the Second National Assessment), this project would include information about local weather, soil properties, topography, natural vegetation, cropped areas, runoff, erosion, groundwater, irrigation, and agricultural practices. Water flows would be routed from the 2,150 watershed areas through the 18 major river basins. The system would be calibrated by comparing simulated water outflows with actual stream flows derived from gaging records at the 350 (the 6-digit hydrologic unit areas) locations. Details of the tools, model, and database involved were discussed in detail in the following section, followed by an application of the HUMUS system to a 8-digit watershed area located in south-central part of Texas.
Please contact Dr. Raghavan ("Srini") Srinivasan for more information
Name:
RAGHAVAN
SRINIVASAN
Phone:
(979) 845-5069
Fax:
(979) 862-2607
Email:
r-srinivasan at tamu.edu
Contact Address:
Director of the Spatial Sciences Laboratory
Department of Forest Science and
Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering
1500 Research Plaza, Suite B223 City:
College Station
Province or State:
Texas
Postal Code:
77845
Country:
USA
Personnel
TYLER
B.
STEVENS Role:
SERF AUTHOR
Phone:
(301) 614-6898
Fax:
301-614-5268
Email:
Tyler.B.Stevens at nasa.gov
Contact Address:
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Global Change Master Directory City:
Greenbelt
Province or State:
MD
Postal Code:
20771
Country:
USA
Related URL
Link:
GET SERVICE
Description:
Access the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT)
Link:
VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
Description:
Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) homepage.
Link:
VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
Description:
Geographic Information Systems and Models profect home page.
Publications/References Arnold, J.G., J.R. Williams, A.D. Nicks, and N.B. Sammons. 1990. SWRRB-A basin scale simulation model for soil and water resources management. Texas A&M Press. College Station, TX. 255 pp.
Arnold, J.G. 1990. ROTO-A continuous water and sediment routing model. ASCE Proc. of the Watershed Management Symposium. Durango, CO. 480-488 pp.
Arnold, J.G. ... 1992. Spatial scale variability in model development and parameterization. Ph.D Thesis, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN. pp 183.
Arnold, J.G., B.A. Engel, and R. Srinivasan. 1993. A Continuous time, grid cell watershed model. In: Proceedings of Application of Advanced Information Technologies for the Management of Natural Resources. Sponsored by ASAE. June 17-19, 1993, Spokane, WA.
Committee on Conservation Needs and Opportunities, 1986. Soil conservation: Assessing the national resource inventory. Volume 1, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 114 p.
Rosenthal, W., R. Srinivasan, and J.G. Arnold. 1993. A GIS watershed hydrology model link to evaluate water resources of the Lower Colorado River in Texas. In: Proceedings of Application of Advanced Information Technologies for the Management of Natural Resources. Sponsored by ASAE. June 17-19, 1993, Spokane, WA.
Srinivasan, R. and J.G. Arnold. 1993. Basin scale water quality modeling using GIS. In: Application of Advanced Information Technologies for Management of Natural Resources. Sponsored by ASAE. June 17-19, 1993, Spokane, WA.
U.S. Army. 1987. GRASS reference manual. USA CERL, Champaign, IL.
Creation and Review Dates
SERF Creation Date:
2003-10-06
SERF Last Revision Date:
2007-04-20
Links
