Project Number: 6206-13610-006-22
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Nov 01, 2006
End Date: May 31, 2009

Objective:
The objective of this cooperative research project is to accomplish the objectives and provide the deliverables that are outlined in the project work plan entitled "A Project to Develop Databases for the Hydrologic and Water Quality System (HAWQS)". That project work plan is the scope of work for the USDA Agricultural Research Service's Interagency Agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (ARS-60-6206-6-075 / EPA-DW-12-92219401-1), and is hereby attached to this agreement as the scope of work for this agreement. Objectives include: 1) developing a HAWQS design that is consistent with EPA's Federal Enterprise Architecture; 2) developing a HAWQS input database to fully support SWAT and SPARROW model applications on the NHD; 3) aggregating input data for different spatial and temporal modeling scales; 4) developing plans for SWAT model upgrades, HAWQS utilities and interfaces, and a model application; 5) documenting databases; and 6) participating in an ad-hoc interagency review team sponsored by EPA to discuss the development of HAWQS.

Approach:
The approach is described in detail in the attached scope of work entitled "A Project to Develop Databases for the Hydrologic and Water Quality System (HAWQS)". This project will provide databases and modeling system utilities to support the development of a large-scale water quality modeling system for national-scale economic benefit assessment. HAWQS will be designed to support a wide variety of national-scale economic benefit assessments for the US EPA Office of Water (OW), and will be an extension of the Hydrologic Unit Model of the United States (HUMUS). HUMUS has recently been updated and is being used to support an assessment of the in-stream water quality benefits of agricultural conservation practices for USDA's Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP). CEAP-HUMUS presently consists of geo-spatial data for modeling hydrology, sediment, nutrients, and pesticides; pre-processors to configure SWAT model input files; and post-processors for SWAT model output. This project will extend CEAP-HUMUS by updating input data and upgrading SWAT modeling capabilities, replacing the existing stream network with the National Hydrology Dataset (NHD), and creating interfaces and data management utilities. This reorganization is necessary to support higher levels of resolution needed for EPA's economic benefit assessments and to maintain consistency across the OW's databases and data management systems.