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Environmental Modeling Community of Practice

Application of BASINS/HSPF to Data-scarce Watersheds

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.

BASINS Tutorials(53 pp, 124 MB, February 2015) 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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