Following the Lower Colorado River with the guidance of

BASINS 3.0Kristina Schneider

CE 394K.2

My Quest and its DetoursExplore the use of the new BASINS 3.0 to model water quality in Lake AustinDecided to focus on the SWAT modelModel entire Austin - Travis CUHave to cross some Mountains!

Destination: Austin – Travis CU

Listing state ID Waterbody Parameter of Concern

Priority for TMDL

development

Is the Waterbody Targeted for TMDL

development before the year April, 2000?

Potential sources of Impairment

NONPOINT SOURCE,POINT SOURCE,

NONPOINT SOURCE,POINT SOURCE,

CHLORDANEPATHOGENS

TX  TX-1403-1998 LAKE AUSTIN ORGANIC ENRICHMENT/LOW

TX  TX-1427-1998 ONION CREEK TOTAL DISSOLVED SOLIDS

PATHOGENS

LOW  No POINT SOURCE,

LOW  No

MEDIUM  No

TX  TX-1429-1998 TOWN LAKE MEDIUM  No

TX  TX-1428-1998 COLORADO RIVER BELOW TOWN LAKE

NONPOINT SOURCE,

TX  TX-1430-1998 BARTON CREEK PATHOGENS MEDIUM  No NONPOINT SOURCE,

Source: 303(d) Listed Waters Website maintained by the EPA

TMDL Listed Waters for the CU

My Guide: BASINS 3.0Integrated framework using an ArcView Interface.Models:

SWATWinHSPFQUAL2EPLOAD

Amazing Collection of National Environmental DataUpdated Data Formats Automatic Watershed Delineator

Source: BASINS 3.0 User Manuel

My Planned Journey: The steps to using SWAT

Activate SWAT, Watershed Delineator, and Land Use, Soil Classification and Overlay Tool Ext. Delineate the watershedDefine Land Use and SoilsDefine HRUsDefine the weather data Apply the default input files writer Set up (requires specification of simulation period, PET calculation method, etc.) and run SWAT

My First Guide: BASINS 3.0 Beta from the Web

Available at: http://www.epa.gov/ost/ftp/basins/system/BASINS3/areadb3.htm

Use Assess and Target to get a general picture of water quality situation.Watershed Delineator works!!The Land Use and Soil Classification does not appear.

My First Guide: BASINS 3.0 Beta from the Web

NHD

Digitized Outlet

Burned-in Stream

RF1

My second Guide: BASINS 3.0 Beta from BRC

Watershed DelineationDEM from BASINS 2.0 polygon not exact enough when just convert to grid

NHD used to burn-in stream

Delineator created stream

My second Guide: Watershed Delineation

Tried to use the a NED DEM. Possible Problem Projection

My second Guide: Watershed Delineation

Success! Used BASINS DEM polygon but specified the correct grid size. Tweeked the nhd_rch file

Thanks to Vicki

Samuels !

My second Guide: Subbasin Results

Only one Subbasin has attributes?

My second Guide: Land Use and Soil Classification

My second Guide: Land Use and Soil Classification

Reclassified Land Use

Reclassified Soils

My second Guide: SWAT Input Files

The next step is to create the input files for SWAT.

This input file is where our error in the subbasin delineation matters.

My second Guide: Basin Error causes LU & Soil error

What about the other Models?HSPF

Also, requires correctly delineated watersheds.

QUAL2E

Needs Permit Compliance System Data

• This dataset is being reformatted for version 3.0.

PLOAD

Manual has no documentation and not easily deciphered.

Travel Guide: Watershed Reports

Travel Guide: Watershed Reports

DOComparision of WQ Station DO Concentrations

0.00

2.00

4.00

6.00

8.00

10.00

12.00

14.00

1980-1984 1985-1989 1990-1994 1995 -1997

DO

(mg/

L) Avg.

Max

Min

Com paris ion of Average Yearly WQ Station DO Concentrations

7.20

7.40

7.60

7.80

8.00

8.20

8.40

8.60

1980-1984 1985-1989 1990-1994 1995 -1997

DO

(mg/

L)

Travel Guide: Watershed Reports

Chlordane

• Interesting to note the data is not available after 1980. It is possibly not longer an issue.

Comparision of WQ Stations Chlordane Concentrations

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

0.4

1970-1974 1975-1979 1980-1984

Chl

orda

ne (u

g/L)

Average

Max

Min

Comparision of Yearly Average WQ Station Chlordane Concentrations

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

1970-1974 1975-1979 1980-1984

Chl

orda

ne (u

g/L)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Average

# of Stations

Future Travels

Use BASINS 3.0 when the final release with data is available this summer to complete my expedition.

Goal of the study with be to investigate the variation of DO with differing land uses.

If time permits study the nature of nutrient loading in the CU.

Questions?