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Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment Tool (AGWA) Poster Presentation
Citation:
Guertin, D., D. Goodrich, I. Burns, Y. Korgaonkar, J. Barlow, B. Sheppard, C. Unkrich, AND W. Kepner. Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment Tool (AGWA) Poster Presentation. AWRA Summer Specialty Conference, Sacramento, CA, July 11 - 13, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
This work provides environmental protection managers and practitioners with an ability to evaluate a selected set of Green Infrastructure (GI) features relative to low impact development in arid and semi-arid regions. Specifically, the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) hydrologic modeling and watershed assessment tool has been modified to help facilitate environmental assessment related to GI practices at multiple scales (lot, subdivision, and small watershed). The AGWA GI tool can be a used to inform planning decisions related to urban development and storm water management and will be useful in understanding expected differences in storm water runoff between neighboring developments or natural environments. (www.awra.org/meetings/Sacramento2016/)
Description:
The Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment tool (AGWA, see: www.tucson.ars.ag.gov/agwa or http://www.epa.gov/esd/land-sci/agwa/) is a GIS interface jointly developed by the USDA-Agricultural Research Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the University of Arizona, and the University of Wyoming to automate the parameterization and execution of a suite of hydrologic and erosion models (RHEM, KINEROS2 and SWAT). Through an intuitive interface the user selects an outlet from which AGWA delineates and discretizes the watershed using a Digital Elevation Model (DEM). The watershed model elements are then intersected with terrain, soils, and land cover data layers to derive the requisite model input parameters. The chosen model is then run, and the results are imported back into AGWA for graphical display. AGWA can difference results from multiple simulations to examine relative change over a variety of input scenarios (e.g. climate/storm change, land cover change, implementation of BMPs, present conditions and alternative futures). This allows managers to identify potential problem areas where additional monitoring can be undertaken or mitigation activities can be focused. Application examples of AGWA will be presented including post-fire assessment, implementation of rangeland BMPs, green infrastructure, and future change analysis. Versions of AGWA are available for ESRI ArcView 3.x and ArcGIS 9.x and 10.x.
