Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) Model 2024 Status

The Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model has been developed by the United States Department of Agriculture since 1985. WEPP is a physical process-based simulation technology to estimate runoff, soil loss, and sediment yields from hillslope profiles, small watersheds, and fields. In this paper we will provide current science model status, recent updates including water quality capabilities, and newest model web-based interfaces and databases. A cooperative project between the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has resulted in development of new web-based interfaces for model applications to hillslope profiles (https://brenton.nserl.purdue.edu/wepp/) and user-defined field polygon areas. These utilize the new NRCS Conservation Resources - Land Management Operations Database (CRLMOD) that provides consistent information for crop growth, tillage operations, and management operations for WEPP as well as the Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS), and the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation version 2 (RUSLE2). An updated version of GeoWEPP has also been developed that functions with open-source QGIS instead of the proprietary ArcGIS. In addition to ARS and NRCS WEPP interfaces, other groups have also developed their own technologies utilizing WEPP for erosion predictions and watershed soil loss and sediment delivery applications. The USDA Forest Service together with the University of Idaho has created numerous web-based tools (https://forest.moscowfsl.wsu.edu/fswepp/), most recently WEPPcloud (https://wepp.cloud/weppcloud/). Iowa State University utilizes WEPP and observed radar precipitation data in their Daily Erosion Project, that provides near real-time daily estimates of runoff and soil loss across 7 Midwest states and reported in a web-based interface on a HUC-12 basis (https://www.dailyerosion.org/). Current WEPP efforts and future plans will also be discussed.It is from an ASABE meeting paper Flanagan, Dennis C., James R. Frankenberger, Chris S. Renschler, Chris B. Coreil, Olaf David, Anurag Srivastava, Sadia A. Jame, and Ryan P. McGehee. "Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) Model 2024 Status." In 2024 ASABE Annual International Meeting, p. 1. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2024. doi: https://doi.org/10.13031/aim.202400678. Works produced by employees of the U.S. Government as part of their official duties are not copyrighted within the U.S. The content of this document is not copyrighted

Envisioning a sustainable agricultural water future across spatial scales

Sustainable agricultural water systems are critical to ensure prosperous agricultural production, secure water resources, and support healthy ecosystems that sustain livelihoods and well-being. Many growing regions are using water unsustainably, leading to groundwater and streamflow depletion and polluted water bodies. Often, this is driven by global consumer demands, with environmental and social impacts occurring in regions far from where the crop is ultimately consumed. This letter defines sustainable agricultural water limits, both for quantity and quality, tying them to the impacts of agricultural water use, such as impacts on ecosystems, economies, human health, and other farmers. Imposing these limits will have a range of both positive and negative impacts on agricultural production, food prices, ecosystems, and health. Pathways forward exist and are proposed based on existing studies, showing the gains that can be made from the farm to global scale to ensure sustainable water systems while sustaining agricultural production