his listing (in no particular order) of hydrodynamic and watershed modeling resources on the Internet is presented as a service to the United States Navy environmental community by the Marine Environmental Support Office (see administrative information). The information provided herein was correct, to the best of our knowledge, at the time of publication. It is important to remember, however, the dynamic nature of the Internet. Resources that are free and publicly available one day may require a fee or restrict access the next, and the location of items may change as menus and homepages are reorganized. Inclusion of any resource in this listing does not constitute an endorsement by the United States Navy. All descriptions are taken from the resource sites themselves, and the Marine Environmental Support Office assumes no responsibility for their accuracy or the contents of the sites.
Updated: April 9, 2004
This model is used to help assess the extent contaminated sediments influence overlying waters. In the model, the system is idealized as a well-mixed surface water layer underlain by a vertically stratified sediment column. The sediment is well mixed horizon-tally, but segmented vertically into a well-mixed surface layer and a deep sedi-ment. The latter, in turn, is segmented into contaminated and uncontaminated regions. The specification of a mixed surface layer is included because an unconsolidated layer is often observed at the surface of sediments because of a number of processes, including bioturbation and mechanical mixing.
The TABS-MD (Multi-Dimensional) Numerical Modeling System is a collection of generalized computer programs and utility codes, designed for studying multi-dimensional hydrodynamics in rivers, reservoirs, bays, and estuaries. These models can be used to study project impacts on flows, sedimentation, constituent transport, and salinity. TABS is a component of the Surface-water Modeling System (SMS). TABS-MD models include:
TrophicTrace is an Excel™ add-in that can be used to calculate, with inputs provided by users, potential human health and ecological risks due to bioaccumulation of sediment-associated contaminants. The model estimates expected concentrations in fish using a sediment-based food-web model for organic compounds, via trophic transfer factors from invertebrates to fish for certain metals, and via bioconcentration factors from water to fish for the remaining metals and hydrophilic organic compounds. Risks are calculated following USEPA and USACE risk assessment guidance (USEPA, 1989; 1997a; USEPA/USACE, 1998; Cura et al., 1999). TrophicTrace allows users to characterize the uncertainty associated with risk estimates using trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. Uncertainties can be propagated using fuzzy arithmetic principles that provide risk estimates in the form of trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. Example data sets are provided within TrophicTrace for demonstration purposes only. Use of TrophicTrace to evaluate the risks posed by a specific sediment or site must be based on appropriate, site-specific inputs.
The WMS software provides a comprehensive environment for hydrologic analysis of watershed systems. Developed in cooperation with the Waterways Experiment Station (WES), WMS provides graphical tools for use in the delineation of watersheds and flood plains. Hydrologic models using HEC-1 and TR-20 may be set up and viewed in a user-friendly graphical environment. Interfaces to the USGS National Flood Freqency program and the Rational Method provide other modeling options. The Watershed Modeling System (WMS) is the most sophisticated watershed modeling software available today. WMS integrates and simplifies the process of overland stream flow by bringing together all of the tools needed to complete a successful study.
States, territories, and authorized tribes are responsible for allocating loads among point and nonpoint sources identified under each TMDL. During the allocation process, EPA encourages authorities to consider a range of allocation options that are technically feasible and demonstrate programmatic consistency. Allocations for a particular watershed or TMDL are likely to be based on competing measures of desirability such as cost effectiveness, and equity. Final allocation determinations are policy decisions and should reflect public perceptions about acceptable tradeoffs between these measures. As an example, allocation strategies that minimize costs may be deemed unfair if particular sources are burdened with most of the cost, while allocations based on equal load reductions may be more costly. Watershed modeling frameworks are tools that can be used to help evaluate the tradeoffs associated with different allocations. These framworks are capable of identifying cost minimizing allocations and comparing cost distributions across stakeholders under different allocation scenarios. This website demonstrates such a cost-minimization framework and provides examples of load allocations and cost distributions for a case study watershed. A spreadsheet modeling framework has been developed to identify optimal allocations under a variety of watershed conditions. This framework has been applied to a small watershed representing conditions in rural Idaho. The goal of this framework is to identify management practices and technical controls (i.e., decisions) that: Meet allocation objectives, Satisfy pollutant criteria, and Satisfy stakeholder constraints.
AQUATOX predicts the fate of various pollutants, such as nutrients and organic toxicants, and their effects on the ecosystem, including fish, invertebrates, and aquatic plants. AQUATOX is a valuable tool for ecologists, biologists, water quality modelers, and anyone involved in performing ecological risk assessments for aquatic ecosystems. AQUATOX is a PC-based ecosystem model that simulates the transfer of biomass and chemicals from one compartment of the ecosystem to another. It does this by simultaneously computing important chemical and biological processes over time. AQUATOX can predict not only the fate of chemicals in aquatic ecosystems, but also their direct and indirect effects on the resident organisms. Therefore it has the potential to help establish the cause and effect relationships between chemical water quality, the physical environment, and aquatic life. This latest update improves the programs ability to simulate periphyton (attached algae).
BASINS is a multi-purpose environmental analysis system for use by regional, state, and local agencies in performing watershed- and water-quality based studies. this new software makes it possible to quickly assess large amounts of point source and nonpoint source data in a format that is easy to use and understand. Installed ona personal computer, BASINS allows the user to assess water quality at selected stream sites or throughout an entire watershed. It is an ivaluable tool that integrates environmental data, analytical tools, and modeling programs to support develpment of cost-effective approaches to environmental protection.
Cornell Mixing Zone Expert System (CORMIX) can be used for the analysis, prediction, and design of aqueous toxic or conventional pollutant discharges into diverse water bodies. The major emphasis is on the geometry and dilution characteristics of the initial mixing zone, including compliance with regulatory constraints, but the system also predicts the behavior of the discharge plume at larger distances. The highly user-interactive CORMIX system is implemented on microcomputers (IBM-PC, or compatible), and consists of three integrated subsystems: CORMIX1 for submerged single port discharges, CORMIX2 for submerged multiport diffuser discharges, and CORMIX3 for buoyant surface discharges. Two post-processing models are linked to the CORMIX system, but can also be used independently. These are CORJET (the Cornell Buoyant Jet Integral Model) for the detailed analysis of the near-field behavior of buoyant jets, and FFLOCATR (the Far-Field Plume Locator) for the far-field delineation of discharge plumes in non-uniform river or estuary environments.
The Enhanced Stream Water Quality Model (QUAL2E) is applicable to well mixed, dendritic streams. It simulates the major reactions of nutrient cycles, algal production, benthic and carbonaceous demand, atmospheric reaeration and their effects on the dissolved oxygen balance. It can predict up to 15 water quality constituent concentrations. It is intended as a water quality planning tool for developing total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) and can also be used in conjunction with field sampling for identifying the magnitude and quality characteristics of nonpoint sources. By operating the model dynamically, the user can study diurnal dissolved oxygen variations and algal growth. However, the effects of dynamic forcing functions, such as headwater flows or point source loads, cannot be modeled with QUAL2E. QUAL2EU is an enhancement allowing users to perform three types of uncertainty analyses: sensitivity analysis, first order error analysis, and Monte Carlo simulation.
Mercury Maps is a tool that relates changes in mercury air deposition rates to changes in mercury fish tissue concentrations, on a national scale. The tool uses a reduced form of widely-accepted complex mercury fate and transport models as applied to watersheds in which air deposition is the sole significant source. The Mercury Maps model concludes that for long-term equilibrium conditions, the ratio of current to future air deposition rates will equal the ratio of current to future fish tissue concentrations. Mercury Maps can be used to help evaluate the benefits of technology-based air emission reduction standards or to perform Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) analyses for individual or multiple watersheds.
The Office of Science and Technology in the Office of Water, as part of the Total Maximum Daily Loading (TMDL) program, developed a screening level pollutant routing model with a Windows-based interface which can estimate surface water concentrations, based on point and non-point source inputs. P-ROUTE is a simple routing model that estimates aqueous pollutant concentrations on a reach by reach flow basis, using 7Q10 or mean flow. P-ROUTE is similar to the Routing and Graphical Display System (RGDS) model; however it utilizes an improved method of estimating average reach concentration of a pollutant.
U.S. EPA regulatory programs have sponsored development of an interactive computer program for performing waste load allocations for toxics -- Simplified Method Program - Variable Complexity Stream Toxics Model (SMPTOX3). SMPTOX3 provides user-friendly access to a technique for calculating water column and stream bed toxic substance concentrations resulting from point source discharges into streams and rivers. It predicts pollutant concentrations in dissolved and particulate phases for water column and bed sediments and total suspended solid. SMPTOX3 provides a user-friendly microcomputer program for performing toxics modeling.
SWMM is a dynamic rainfall-runoff simulation model, primarily but not exclusively for urban areas, for single-event or long-term (continuous) simulation. Flow routing is performed for surface and sub-surface conveyance and groundwater systems, including the option of fully dynamic hydraulic routing in the Extran Block. Nonpoint source runoff quality and routing may also be simulated, as well as storage, treatment and other best management practices (BMPs).
The Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP) is a generalized framework for modeling contaminant fate and transport in surface waters. Based on the flexible compartment modeling approach, it can be applied in one, two or three dimensions and is designed to permit easy substitution of user- written routines into program structure. Problems studied using WASP framework include biochemical oxygen demand and dissolved oxygen dynamics nutrients and eutrophication, bacterial contamination, and organic chemical and heavy metal contamination.
The Wildlife Contaminant Exposure Model (WCEM) is being developed as a tool to improve the quality of wildlife risk assessments. It is a Windows application developed in Visual Basic 5.0 to estimate wildlife exposure to substances through inhalation and through ingestion of food, water, and soil in North American environments. It was developed by the Canadian Wildlife Service through a cooperative agreement with the National Center for Environmental Assessment of the Office of Research and Development, United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The WCEM is designed to make wildlife exposure modeling more consistent, transparent and efficient. It is suitable for any screening-level risk assessment exercise requiring an estimate of wildlife exposure to organic or inorganic compounds but can also support more detailed risk characterizations. It makes calculating exposure via the diet easier and more accurate by calculating energy requirements using allometric equations; calculating the energy content of food items; linking food energy content with measured dietary item intakes; and allowing for user adjustment of diet scenarios. It facilitates review by indicating values that have been adjusted by the user; providing references; and generating standard reports outlining assumptions and calculations.
HSPF simulates for extended periods of time the hydrologic, and associated water quality, processes on pervious and impervious land surfaces and in streams and well-mixed impoundments. HSPF uses continuous rainfall and other meteorologic records to compute streamflow hydrographs and pollutographs. HSPF simulates interception soil moisture, surface runoff, interflow, base flow, snowpack depth and water content, snowmelt, evapotranspiration, ground-water recharge, dissolved oxygen, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), temperature, pesticides, conservatives, fecal coliforms, sediment detachment and transport, sediment routing by particle size, channel routing, reservoir routing, constituent routing, pH, ammonia, nitrite-nitrate, organic nitrogen, orthophosphate, organic phosphorus, phytoplankton, and zooplankton.
The program can simulate one or many pervious or impervious unit areas discharging to one or many river reaches or reservoirs. Frequency-duration analysis can be done for any time series. Any time step from 1 minute to 1 day that divides equally into 1 day can be used. Any period from a few minutes to hundreds of years may be simulated. HSPF is generally used to assess the effects of land-use change, reservoir operations, point or nonpoint source treatment alternatives, flow diversions, etc. Programs, available separately, support data preprocessing and postprocessing for statistical and graphical analysis of data saved to the Watershed Data Management (WDM) file.
The scope of the USGS Surface-water quality and flow modeling Interest Group includes all surface-water modeling activities. Topics of interest include any issues relevant to the hydraulic modeling and/or water-quality modeling of surface waters (lakes, reservoirs, rivers, estuaries, and watersheds).
SPARROW relates in-stream water-quality measurements to spatially referenced characteristics of watersheds, including contaminant sources and factors influencing terrestrial and stream transport. The model empirically estimates the origin and fate of contaminants in streams, and quantifies uncertainties in these estimates based on model coefficient error and unexplained variability in the observed data.
This WWW page offers 27 different modeling programs dealing with such topics as floods, fluvial sediments, and streamflow simulations, as well as solute-transport modeling with biodegredation.
Marine Modeling and Analysis Programs (MMAP) develops, improves and applies analytical methods and numerical techniques for the analysis, simulation and real-time forecasting of oceanographic (e.g., water levels, currents, temperature, salinity), atmospheric (e.g., winds, sea level pressure, temperature, relative humidity) and water quality (e.g., dissolved oxygen, nutrients, sediment transport) parameters in support of the National Ocean Service mission of providing accurate information on these variables for U.S. estuarine and coastal marine areas. Oceanographic systems developed in MMAP are used to provide products and services for the coastal marine community in support of safe and efficient navigation and for environmentally sound utilization, management, and protection of the coastal zone.
MMAP programs fall into three categories: