User’s Guide for the Fertilizer Emission Scenario Tool for CMAQ (FEST-C) Version 1.4
Citation:
Ran, L., E. Cooter, D. Yang, V. Benson, Y. Yuan, A. Hanna, AND V. Garcia. User’s Guide for the Fertilizer Emission Scenario Tool for CMAQ (FEST-C) Version 1.4. U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, Washington, DC, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
FEST-C generates agricultural land nitrogen and soil information for CMAQ bi-directional NH3 modeling and provide edge of field inputs for SWAT watershed hydrology and water quality modeling.
Description:
The Fertilizer Emission Scenario Tool for CMAQ (FEST-C v1.4) is a Java-based interface system that facilitates the integration of agriculture, atmosphere, and hydrology simulations at large scales through the current release of the Spatial Allocator (SA v4.3.2) Raster Tools system. With an adapted Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model for grassland and crop production, the system is primarily used to simulate daily soil carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) cycles on agricultural lands with atmospheric conditions and management practices including fertilization and irrigation. The FEST-C interface with simple tool buttons guides users through EPIC simulations and output extractions to generate the required input for CMAQ bi-directional NH3 modeling. In addition to its application for air quality modeling, the system has been enhanced to integrate with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for watershed hydrology and water quality assessment. FEST-C enables the extraction of SWAT-ready input files with nutrient and water runoff from agricultural lands and weather and N deposition from atmospheric models for simulating nitrogen fate and transport in watersheds.
