WATER - A Water-Assessment Decision Tool for Environmental Regulators.

The Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources (WATER) was developed in cooperation with the Kentucky Division of Water in order to provide a consistent and defensible method of estimating streamflow and water availability in ungaged basins throughout Kentucky. WATER is process oriented; it is TOPMODEL based and incorporates historical water-use data together with physiographic data that quantitatively describe topography and soil-water storage. The result is a “user-friendly” decision tool that can estimate water availability in basins of various sizes without additional data or processing. The model runs on a daily time step and critical source data include an historical record of daily temperature and precipitation, DEMs, SSURGO soils data, and historical records of water discharges and withdrawals. Statistical comparison of estimated discharge to that observed at USGS streamflow-gaging stations in 12 non-karst basins shows that multiple physiographic terranes can be modeled accurately and that no localized calibration is necessary. The ability of WATER to consistently model water movement through non-karst basins has provided the foundation to model streamflow in the karst areas of the Kentucky.