The Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources (WATER-KY; Williamson and others, 2009) provides the ability to simulate streamflow for ungaged basins. This model integrates TOPMODEL (Beven and Kirkby, 1979) for pervious portions of the landscape with simulation of flow generated from impervious surfaces (USDA, 1986). A restructured version of this decision support tool translates the abilities of WATER to a format that can be used without proprietary software (Williamson and others, 2021). Additional functionality has also been added to include hydrologic response units (HRUs) that are defined based on three fundamental land-use categories: forest, agricultural land, and developed areas, based on subsequent development of WATER for the Delaware River Basin (Williamson and others, 2015). This refinement for agricultural areas, combined with the new software environment that enables easy substitution of precipitation and temperature data was used to develop a method focused on recent conditions in order to simulate daily peak streamflow for forecasted precipitation totals as well as the associated stage in order to identify if flood conditions are possible.
Beven, K.J., and Kirkby, M.J., 1979, A physically based, variable contributing area model of basin hydrology / Un modèle à base physique de zone d'appel variable de l'hydrologie du bassin versant: Hydrological Sciences Bulletin v. 24, p. 43-69, https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667909491834. U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA], 1986, Urban hydrology for small watersheds: Natural Resources Conservation Service, Conservation Engineering Division, Technical Release 55, Revised June 1986, Update of Appendix A January 1999, https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1421/ML14219A437.pdf. Williamson, T.N., Hoefling, D.J., Headman, A.O., and Gerzan, M.N., 2021, Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources for the Commonwealth of Kentucky updated for 2019: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9AQH027. Williamson, T.N., Lant, J.G., Claggett, P.R., Nystrom, E.A., Milly, P.C.D., Nelson, H.L., Hoffman, S.A., Colarullo, S.J., and Fischer, J.M., 2015, Summary of hydrologic modeling for the Delaware River Basin using the Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources (WATER): U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2015–5143, 68 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20155143. Williamson, T.N., Odom, K.R., Newson, J.K., Downs, A.C., Nelson Jr., H.L., Cinotto, P.J., and Ayers, M.A., 2009, The Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources (WATER)—A water-budget modeling approach for managing water-supply resources in Kentucky—Phase I—Data processing, model development, and application to non-karst areas:U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2009–5248, 34 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20095248.