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Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (WMOST) Workshop
Citation:
Detenbeck, N. AND A. Morrison. Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (WMOST) Workshop. International Low Impact Development Conference, Portland, ME, August 29 - 31, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
This workshop will provide an introduction to integrated water management concepts and to EPA's Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool v2 as part of the series of pre-conference workshops for the International Low Impact Development Conference.
Description:
To assist communities in the evaluation of green infrastructure, low impact development, and land conservation practices as part of an Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) approach, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) supported the development of the Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (WMOST). WMOST is based on a recent integrated watershed management optimization model (Zoltay et al. 2010) that was created to allow water resource managers to evaluate a broad range of technical, economic, and policy management options within a watershed. This model includes evaluation of conservation of undeveloped land for source water protection and infiltration of stormwater, green infrastructure stormwater best management practices (BMPs) to increase infiltration on developed lands, and other water-related management options in drinking water and wastewater programs. Version 2 of WMOST focuses on management options for water quantity endpoints (http://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?dirEntryId=311013&simpleSearch=1&searchAll=wmost+v2). WMOST is implemented with a user-friendly interface in Excel for data input and output display, supported by VBA coding with linear optimization accomplished through linkage to LP-solver. This workshop will provide an overview of the concept of integrated water management, a description of problem formulation in WMOST, an overview of available data sources, an in-depth view of the hydrology, BMP, water resources, and flooding modules within WMOST and example case studies. If time permits, we will also discuss the latest developments in WMOST version 3, including a water quality module and climate change module to facilitate robust decision-making. Participants will have the opportunity for hands-on training with WMOST using data from existing case studies. Participants must provide their own laptops for computer exercises with a copy of either MS Office Excel 2010 or 2013. Links to software and manuals will be provided for participants to load prior to the workshop.