Model Library

Capabilities

• 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 (EPA, n.d.);
• Flexibility in configuring parameters to match specific watershed characteristics;
• Supporting diverse land-use types and management practices.

 Limitations

• The user-defined fraction used in HSPF may not represent effective application of BMPs (Xie et al., 2015);
• HSPF does not consider other physical characteristics of the pond except user-defined removal fractions (Xie et al., 2015);
• HSPF includes a lot of empirical parameters, and its calibration of these parameters is very time-consuming (Xie et al., 2015; Adu and Kumarasamy 2018);
• HSPF has a complex biogeochemical structure (Costa et al., 2019) and requires expert knowledge to select relevant parameters (Yuan et al., 2020);
• Users should not directly simulate conveyance systems nor the variety of stormwater control measures (Yazdi et al. 2019);
• Low accuracy in simulating monthly sediment yield and streamflow in extreme weather conditions (Yuan et al. 2020);
• HSPF does not incorporate the spatial distribution of watersheds (Adu 2018);
• Inadequate simulation of the flood waves or the intense single-event storm (Yuan et al., 2020);
• HSPF simplifies the cross-section of natural channels and rivers to be a trapezoid or rectangular (Borah et al., 2019).

Inputs

Topography data, LULC data, Soil data, Meteorological data, Hydrological data, Water quality data, Management data.

Outputs

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 (USGS, n.d.).

References

Lee, D. H., Fabian, P. S., Kim, J. H., & Kang, J. H. (2021). HSPF-based assessment of inland nutrient source control strategies to reduce algal blooms in streams in response to future climate changes. Sustainability, 13, 12413. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132212413

Qiu, J., Shen, Z., Leng, G., et al. (2021). Synergistic effect of drought and rainfall events of different patterns on watershed systems. Scientific Reports, 11, 18957. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97574-z

Objectives

The objectives of this study were: (1) evaluate the impact of future climate changes on in-stream algal blooms relative to present status, (2) compare different climate change scenarios in terms of their potential impact on in-stream algal growth potential, and (3) identify better nutrient management strategies for a watershed for reducing algal blooms resulting from climate changes.

The main aim of this study was to seek hydrological and water quality responses to extreme climate (heavy precipitation and drought) on the basis of assessing the impacts of interacting factors on hydrology and NPS pollution.