Exposure Assessment Models

HSPF

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HSPF Releases
Version Release Date
Release Notes will be provided once release 12.4 completes peer review.
12.4 Not available for public use.
pre-release April 2014 for internal peer review.
11.0 March 1997

Introduction

Hydrological Simulation Program - FORTRAN (HSPF) is a comprehensive package for simulation of watershed hydrology and water quality for both conventional and toxic organic pollutants. HSPF incorporates watershed-scale ARM and NPS models into a basin-scale analysis framework that includes fate and transport in one dimensional stream channels. It is the only comprehensive model of watershed hydrology and water quality that allows the integrated simulation of land and soil contaminant runoff processes with In-stream hydraulic and sediment-chemical interactions. The result of this simulation is a time history of the runoff flow rate, sediment load, and nutrient and pesticide concentrations, along with a time history of water quantity and quality at any point in a watershed. HSPF simulates three sediment types (sand, silt, and clay) in addition to a single organic chemical and transformation products of that chemical.

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Application

The abstract for the Application of BASINS/HSPF to Data-scarce Watersheds follows. Better Assessment Science Integrating Point and Nonpoint Sources (BASINS 4.1) is a program developed by the US EPA for local, regional, and state agencies responsible for water resources management, particularly the development of total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) as required under the Clean Water Act (CWA). BASINS facilitates water quantity and quality modeling applications to support EPA’s policy and regulatory decisions, e.g., water quality criteria development and total maximum daily load calculations. BASINS 4.1 has pre-packaged cartographic, environmental, and climate data within its databases and BASINS users in the United States often use it. Where pre-packaged data is not available, however, BASINS users must obtain data from other sources and upload it to BASINS. This tutorial summarizes data requirements of BASINS users who want to use data other than pre-packaged or who want to apply BASINS/HSPF to watersheds outside the United States. This report presents steps to import data to BASINS, delineate watersheds, and launch BASINS to build an HSPF model project.

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