You are here:
The AGWA - KINEROS2 Suite of Modeling Tools in the Context of Watershed Services Valuation
Citation:
Goodrich, D. C., C. L. Unkrich, R. E. Smith, D. A. Woolhiser, S. Burns, J. Massart, L. Levick, S. Miller, D. J. Semmens, M. Nearing, P. Heilman, H. Wei, S. Yatheendradas, G. Paige, M. Schaffner, H. Gupta, T. Wagener, P. Troch, D. Brookshire, A. K. Guber, Y. A. Pachepsky, J. Boyd, AND W. G. KEPNER. The AGWA - KINEROS2 Suite of Modeling Tools in the Context of Watershed Services Valuation. Presented at Joint Federal Interagency Conference (Sedimentation and Hydrologic Modeling), Las Vegas, NV, June 27 - July 01, 2010.
Impact/Purpose:
Watershed or ecosystem management and forecasting inherently integrates the need to understand watershed processes as they change in both time and space. Decision-making requires trade-offs be considered that include market-based goods and services and non-market values for environmental services provided by a watershed. In addition, the decision framework should be constrained by the relevant institutional and regulatory structures.
Description:
KINEROS originated in the 1970’s as a distributed event-based rainfall-runoff erosion model. A unique feature at that time was its interactive coupling of a finite difference approximation of the kinematic overland flow equations to the Smith-Parlange infiltration model. Development and improvement of KINEROS has continued for a variety of projects and purposes. As a result, a suite of KINEROS-based modeling tools has been developed that can be executed from a single shell. The tools range from the event-based KINEROS2 flash-flood forecasting tool to the continuous KINEROS-OPUS biogeochemistry tool. The KINEROS2 flash flood forecasting tool is being tested with the National Weather Service. It assimilates the NWS Digital Hybrid Reflectivity (DHR) radar product in near-real time and can simultaneously run ensembles using multiple radar-reflectivity relationships. In addition to simulation of runoff and sediment transport, KINEROS-OPUS can simulate management, plant growth, nutrient cycling (nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon), water quality and chemical runoff. Like any detailed, distributed watershed modeling software, the KINEROS suite of tools often requires considerable effort to delineate watersheds, discretize them into modeling elements and parameterize these elements. This need motivated the development of the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) tool. This ArcGIS based tool uses commonly available, national, GIS data layers to fully parameterize, execute, and visualize results from both the SWAT and KINEROS models. By employing these two models AGWA can conduct hydrologic modeling and watershed assessments at multiple temporal and spatial scales. A variety of new capabilities have been added to AGWA to configure KINEROS inputs to simulate a number of land-management practices or changes (fire, urbanization, BMPs) as well as incorporating decision-management tools for rangelands. An overview of these tools will be provided pointing to other more detailed presentations and computer demonstrations of these tools being made at the conference. In the larger context these tools are components of a watershed management framework, which embodies decision tools, scenario development and both market and non-market valuation of watershed services (e.g. provisioning of clean water, natural flood attenuation, etc.).