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Application of NASA Satellite Products and Land Surface Models to Improve the Hydrologic Performance of the EPA's BASINS DST
Investigators: D. Toll (NASA/GSFC), E. Engman (SAIC/NASA/GSFC), Ed Partington (EPA/OW), James Carleton (EPA/OW),
G. Shenk (EPA/CBP), Angelica Magness (USGS/CBP), J. Nigro (SSAI/NASA/GSFC), W. Ni-Meister (Hunter College),
Shih Yan Lee (Hunter College), and Phil Townsend (Univ. Wisc.)
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Abstract
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The purpose of this project is to assess the potential for NASA MODIS land products
and NASA LIS evapotranspiration and precipitation to improve the performance of
EPA BASINS decision support systems used for monitoring water quality,
establishing Total Maximum Daily Loads of contaminants, and identifying
sources of pollution for protecting and monitoring our nation's water supply.
The goal of this project is to evaluate primarily NASA LIS water availability products
of precipitation and evapotranspiration and MODIS land cover and vegetation index products
to improve water quality modeling for the EPA BASINS DST.
The strategy being used is to focus on BASINS-HSPF, a continuous watershed model
that produces a streamflow hydrograph at specific points in a drainage basin.
If we are able to improve the predictive capability of HSPF, the BASINS DST will produce
more accurate streamflow and thus concentrations of specific water quality parameters.
The spatially distributed precipitation product derived from LIS should produce
improved forcing when compared to the gauge only approach currently used by EPA.
In addition, work is ongoing to use LIS ET products which should provide a spatially
distributed estimate that is superior to the current ET models used in HSPF.
Also, both Landsat and MODIS data were effectively shown to model the export
of nitrogen deposition in the watershed from the intensity of defoliation
via environmental disturbances.
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NASA Products
Terra - MODIS, Aqua - MODIS, Model - LDAS/LIS
Project Partners
EPA
Decision Support Tools
BASINS
is a GIS-based environmental analysis system developed by EPA.
The watershed simulation models require typical input data on soils, land use,
topography and meteorology.
EPA operates BASINS to track and assess water quality, by computing the
maximum amount of pollution that a water body is allowed to hold, known as
Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs).
These TMDLs are a standard measure in water pollution control and assessment.
The primary BASINS submodel for evaluation is the
Hydrologic Simulation Program-FORTRAN (HSPF).
HSPF is a watershed scale model for estimating instream concentrations resulting
from point and nonpoint sources. BASINS-HSPF requires multiple data inputs, and
its performance could be enhanced by several NASA science data products,
such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, and runoff.
Primary NASA products for evaluation include land cover and surface property
products from MODIS and water availability parameters from the NASA
Land Information System (LIS). LIS includes inputs from a variety of NASA
satellite products, primarily from MODIS, but also TRMM and AMSR.
Reports
