Citation:

Detenbeck, N., V. Zoltay, A. Morrison, T. Garrigan, J. Leclair, R. Abele, AND M. Tenbrink. WMOST: A tool for assessing cost-benefits of watershed management decisions affecting community resilience under varying climate regimes. 40th Annual New England Association of Environmental Biologists Meeting, Rockport, ME, March 23 - 25, 2016.

Impact/Purpose:

Version 2 of the Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (WMOST) facilitates integrated water management by communities at the small watershed scale (HUC12- HUC 10). Version 2 provides increased functionality over the previously released version 1, adding modules to automate import of hydrology time series, to automate calculation of green infrastructure BMP function, and to evaluate flood risk and costs as part of the cost-benefit assessment.

Description:

The Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (WMOST v.1) was released by the US Environmental Protection Agency in December 2013 (http://www2.epa.gov/exposure-assessment-models/wmost-10-download-page). The objective of WMOST is to serve as a public-domain screening tool that is efficient and user-friendly for local water resources managers and planners. WMOST is intended to be used as part of an integrated watershed management process, considering both current and future land-use and climate scenarios. The tool allows users to screen a wide-range of potential water resources management options across their watershed or jurisdiction for cost-effectiveness as well as environmental and economic sustainability. Examples of options that can be evaluated with the tool include projects related to stormwater, water supply, wastewater and water-related resources such as low-impact development (LID) and land conservation. The tool is intended to aid in evaluating the environmental and economic costs, benefits, trade-offs and cobenefits of various management options under both current and future climate regimes. In addition, the tool can facilitate the evaluation of low impact development and green infrastructure as alternative or complementary management options. Version 1 of WMOST focused on balancing human and aquatic life needs for water during critical low-flow periods. Version 2 of WMOST, scheduled to be released in January 2016, includes new modules to automate import of regional hydrology data, pre-process inputs to evaluate potential effectiveness of green infrastructure stormwater BMPs in moderating peak and low flows, evaluate flooding risks and costs, and assess the robustness of optimal management solutions across a range of climate scenarios.

Record Details: