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An Overview of the U.S. EPA’s Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (WMOST): A case study in Taunton, Massachusetts.
Citation:
Stagnitta, T., N. Detenbeck, AND A. Piscopo. An Overview of the U.S. EPA’s Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (WMOST): A case study in Taunton, Massachusetts. In Proceedings, 9th International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software (iEMSs), Fort Collins, Colorado, June 24 - 28, 2018. Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 129, (2018).
Impact/Purpose:
Communities, utilities, and watershed organizations have multiple goals for water resource management as well as multiple regulatory goals. Management plans for meeting these goals reflect tradeoffs between stakeholder objectives, which include minimizing costs while also mitigating issues related to both water quantity and quality. EPA's Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool v3 (WMOST) allows stakeholders to identify the most cost-effective suite of management options across stormwater, drinking water, wastewater, and land conservation programs that will meet their identified goals and constraints. This paper provides an in-depth outline of WMOST components and preliminary results to reduce nitrogen for a current case study in Taunton, Massachusetts.
Description:
Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is a planning framework to balance tradeoffs between competing water uses within a watershed. One tool available to aid planners with IWRM is the Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (WMOST), an Excel-based tool that supports decision-making by optimizing for cost effective solutions that meet water quantity and quality regulations. In this case study, WMOST was used to assess multiple management options for the nutrient-impaired Taunton River basin in Massachusetts, United States. Nitrogen water quality targets were determined from regional Total Maximum Daily Loads, which suggest that a 20% reduction in non-point sources (NPS) is necessary to protect the downstream estuary of Mt. Hope Bay. To meet these goals WMOST was used to model the implementation of stormwater best management practices and riparian restoration. Preliminary results show implementing a combination of infiltration basins and restoration of riparian areas that receive high nutrient loads is the most cost-effective solution for reducing nitrogen loadings in the upper Taunton River basin. This paper outlines required input data, highlights the capabilities of WMOST, and provides preliminary analyses and solutions to a real-world problem.
