Chesapeake Bay Program Community Watershed Model Description

Purpose

The Chesapeake Bay Community Watershed Model was developed to empower state and local governments, academics, and other interested parties to run their own decision scenarios on the Chesapeake Bay Program's Watershed Model. Using this model, a group can determine the nutrient and sediment loads delivered to the Bay under various management strategies. By installing this model, supplying data on management practices, land use, and/or other relevant factors, and following the step to run the model, users can determine the loads that result.

The system is also meant as a jumping-off point for other types of investigations. For example, users may be interested in using a calibrated watershed model to investigate the effects of climate change on the Chesapeake Bay or a local region.

At it's core, the community watershed model is a calibrated model of the Chesapeake Bay watershed that can be modified relatively easily using the preprocessing and postprocessing tools available through this web site.


Presentations from the Training Course

Several powerpoint presentations are available for download from this site that can help the user understand more about the underlying model (HSPF), the Chesapeake Bay Program's application of HSPF, and the pre- and post-processing systems that comprise the Community Watershed Model.

The following presentations are from a one-day course taught at the Chesapeake Bay Program. They are not meant to stand alone without explanation, but the user should be able to get a reasonable understanding by going through the presentations and reading the model operations manual and other material on the installation and setup page.


hspf_at_cbp.ppt gives an overview of HSPF and how we apply it at the Chesapeake Bay Program.

community_model.ppt gives a broad overview of the community watershed model capabilities and context.

pre-and-post-processors.ppt gives a more detailed view of how each part of the pre- and post-processors operate.

UCIs.ppt shows each major part of an HSPF UCI (User Controlled Input) files and gives a short explanation of how it is used within the community watershed model.

handouts, directory_structure, and pp_poster are the files that contain the handouts and posters from the classes. They may be of some general reference help.