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ARS Home » Midwest Area » West Lafayette, Indiana » National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #363396
Research Project: Conservation Practice Impacts on Water Quality at Field and Watershed Scales

Location: National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory

Title: Water Erosion Prediction Project technology for use by NRCS and conservation partners

Author
item KUCERA, MICHAEL - Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS, USDA)
item Flanagan, Dennis
item Frankenberger, James - Jim
item SRIVASTAVA, ANURAG - Purdue University

Submitted to: Soil and Water Conservation Society
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/18/2019
Publication Date: 7/28/2019
Citation: Kucera, M., Flanagan, D.C., Frankenberger, J.R., Srivastava, A. 2019. Water Erosion Prediction Project technology for use by NRCS and conservation partners. Soil and Water Conservation Society. p. 13.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and cooperators (NRCS, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management) initiated the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) in 1985. The goal was to produce new-generation process-based water erosion prediction technology for federal agencies to use for soil and water conservation planning and assessment. WEPP technology provides daily simulation results and is a runoff event-driven model. Inputs include rainfall amount and intensity, soil texture, plant growth, residue decomposition, tillage operations, ground cover, slope shape, steepness, and orientation, and soil erodibility. WEPP simulates daily rainfall events over 100 or more years. If runoff is predicted to occur, WEPP calculates soil detachment, sediment transport, sediment deposition, and sediment delivery the event. At the end of the simulation period, values for detachment and deposition are reported for points down a hill slope, and for each detachment or deposition region. In conjunction with WEPP, NRCS has led the development of the Conservation Resources-Land Management Operations Database (CR-LMOD) that is used by WEPP, the Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS), and the Integrated Erosion Tool, version 2 (IET2). CR-LMOD is also utilized for other applications, including the Resource Stewardship Evaluation Tool (RSET), the Field-to-Market Fieldprint® Platform, the Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), and the Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Accounting (COMET) suite of tools. One of the primary reasons to apply the WEPP model is to evaluate the risk of planned cropping systems on sheet and rill erosion, ephemeral erosion, water quantity, water quality, soil water usage/efficiency, energy use, and soil health. With daily WEPP model outputs, statistical summaries can be produced for runoff, water use and erosion using a 100-year simulation period. NRCS and ARS are committed to continued refinement/improvement of WEPP databases and science.