Watershed and River Systems Management Program:

Application to the Yakima River Basin, Washington

WASHINGTON

CANADA

UNITED STATES

46°

47°30'

121°22'30" 119°15'

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0 10 20 30 KILOMETERS

Competition among water-resource

users in many basins in the

western United States has resulted

in a need for near real-time assessments of

water availability and use. The use of

coupled hydrologic and water-management

models can provide these assessments,

with substantial benefits for waterresource planning and

operation. Advancements in

computer hardware and

modeling software have

enabled the development

of such water-resource models.

 The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and

the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation)

are working collaboratively on a long-term

project, termed the Watershed and River

Systems Management Program

(WARSMP). The goal of the program is to

couple watershed and river-reach models

that simulate the physical hydrologic

setting with routing and reservoir management models that account for water

availability and use. The coupled models

are to be applied to Reclamation projects in

the western United States. The program

also supports the development of the

models and necessary software tools for

coupling and use of the models.

A Database-Centered Approach

The key to coupling these models is

linking them through a common

database, the hydrologic database

(HDB). The coupling provides a databasecentered decision support system (DSS)

where output from one model can be

written to the database for use as input to

another model (fig. 1). The HDB also links

ancillary tools needed by individual

models, such as a geographic information

system (GIS), statistical analysis, and data

query and display capabilities. The GIS

provides an automated method to define

values for distributed model parameters,

provides animation tools to visualize

and analyze the spatial and temporal

distribution

of simulated

hydrologic

variables,

and allows

comparisons

of these

variables with

independent

measures of

their spatial and temporal variation. Thus,

the DSS allows for improved

assessments of

long-term planning and

policy decisions, in

addition to the major

thrust of improving

short-term and

mid-term operations,

scheduling, and

planning decisions.

Application to the

Yakima River Basin

The initial applica-

 tion of the

 WARSMP was

in the 23,000 mi

San Juan River Basin in

Arizona, Colorado, New

Mexico, and Utah, a major

tributary to the Colorado

River. Beginning in

fiscal year 1997, the

focus of the WARSMP has been the

application of the DSS to the Yakima River

Basin located in eastern Washington (fig.2).

The basin has a drainage area of about

6,200 mi and produces a mean annual

unregulated runoff of about 5,600 ft /s

(about 4,055,000 acre-feet) and a regulated runoff of about 3,600 ft /s. There are

eight major tributary rivers and numerous

smaller tributary streams.

 The headwaters are on the humid east

slope of the Cascade Range, where mean

annual precipitation is more than 90

inches. The basin ends where the river

discharges to the Columbia River in the

low-lying, arid part of the basin that

receives about 6 inches of precipitation per

year. Most of the precipitation falls during

the winter, and occurs as snow in the

mountains. Total mean annual precipitation in the basin is about 27 inches (about

12,000 ft /s or 8.7 million acre-feet).

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Figure 1. Databasecentered decision support

system (DSS).

Figure 2. Location and topography

of the Yakima River Basin.

Watershed and River Systems Management Program:

Application to the Yakima River Basin, Washington

2

3

3

DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Hydrologic Database

 (HDB)

RIVERWARE SYSTEM

River and Reservoir Management Models

Long-term Policy

 and Planning

Mid-term

Operations

Short-term

Operations

DATA SOURCES QUERY, DISPLAY,

 and ANALYSIS

 GIS

Statistics

 Risk

Hydrometerological

 Environmental

 Physical/Chemical

 Spatial

MODULAR MODELING SYSTEM (MMS)

Watershed and Ecosystem Models

2

This is a collaborative program to facilitate basin-scale water and environmental resource

management by coupling watershed models that describe the physical hydrologic setting,

routing and reservoir management models that account for downstream water use, and reachspecific hydraulic and biogeochemical models conditioned on upstream streamflow.

science for a changing world

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

BUREAU OF RECLAMATION
The topography is highly varied (fig. 2)

and parallels the spatial pattern of mean

annual precipitation. Altitudes in the basin

range from 400 to nearly 8,000 feet.

 Agriculture is the principal economic

activity in the basin, followed by recreation and timber use. The average annual

water demand is about 2,500,000 acrefeet, or nearly 65 percent of the mean

annual unregulated flow. Most of the

demand is for irrigation of about 500,000

acres in the low-lying semiarid to arid

parts of the basin. The demand is met by

storage of water in five major reservoirs

that can store 1,065,000 acre-feet or about

26 percent of the mean annual natural flow

of the river. The basin has more than 80

canals, 5 diversion

dams, and 15 major

return flows. Nearly

45 percent of the

water diverted for

irrigation is

eventually returned,

at varying time-lags

and as both surface

and ground water,

to the river system.

During the lowflow period, these

return flows

account for about

75 percent of the

water in the lower

river system.

 The headwater

drainages are the

sources of water,

and the major water

uses occur downstream in the drier

parts of the basin.

Thus, the variability

in topography,

climate, and water

use creates long

distances between

supply and demand, which in turn results

in spatial and temporal variations in the

quantity and quality of streamflow

throughout the basin.

GUI GUI GUI

DMI DMI DMI

DMI

Xmbuild

Modular Model Opt

Sens

ESP

Module

Library

Visualization

Statistics

DSS

GIS Weasel

PRE-PROCESS POST-PROCESS MODEL

GIS

Weasel

Data

Collection

Data Storage

increasing demand for wildlife and

anadromous and resident fish, water

quality of the streams and ground water,

and the interaction of ground water and

streamflow. New demands are being met

by ground-water sources and compound

the issues. Judicial law also affects watermanagement in the basin, and will

continue to do so.

The Modular Modeling System

The USGS Modular Modeling

System (MMS) is being used for

the watershed modeling component of this study. MMS is an integrated

system

of computer software developed to

provide a framework for the development

and

application of models to simulate a variety

of water, energy, and biogeochemical

processes (Leavesley and others, 1996).

 MMS has three major components:

pre-process, model, and post-process

(fig.3). The pre-process component

includes tools used to input, analyze, and

prepare spatial and time-series data for

use in model applications. The model

component includes tools to develop and

apply models. The post-process component provides tools to display and analyze

model results, and to pass results to

management models or other types of

software such as the HDB. All three

components include graphical user

interfaces (GUIs) and data-management

interfaces (DMIs). A major feature of the

model component is the module library

that contains a variety of modules for

simulating water, energy, chemical, and

biological processes. The user, through an

interactive model builder interface

(xmbuild), selects and links modules to

create a specific model.

 A GIS interface, termed the GIS Weasel

(Leavesley and others, 1997), is part of

MMS. The Weasel facilitates model

development, and also can be used as

a watershed

analysis tool.

A digital elevation model

for the basin

provided the

input to Weasel

for automatic

delineation of

the basin and

for delineation

of subbasins to

be modeled or

analyzed. Based

on locations of

streamflow sites,

stream locations

at mouths of

ungaged

watersheds, and

water-management points,

59 subbasins

were defined

(fig. 4).

 The models

being constructed for the

non-agricultural

subbasins

allow for the spatial distribution of

hydrologic parameters by partitioning or

characterizing a subbasin into modeling

response units—MRUs (Leavesley and

others, 1983). MRUs (formerly called

hydrologic response units) are assumed

to be homogeneous in their hydrologic

response. The Weasel provides a menu

for examining and modifying the MRU

boundaries for a subbasin; as part of

the examination process, any attribute

currently residing in the GIS for a MRU

is provided.

Water Issues

I

ssues of many western States are

common to the basin. These issues

include Indian treaty rights, historical

water rights, over-appropriation of water,

reservoir and irrigation development,

Figure 3. Schematic diagram of the components of the Modular Modeling System (MMS).
The modeling framework was

developed by the Center for

Advanced Decision Support for

Water and Environment Systems

(CADSWES) at the University

of Colorado with funding

provided by Reclamation,

Tennessee Valley Authority

(TVA), and Electric Power

and Research Institute (EPRI)

(Fulp and others, 1995).

 Within RiverWare, the user

constructs the basic network of

a river system that may include

reservoirs, diversions, river reaches,

confluences, or other components.

Data associated with each component

can be entered on-screen through

spread sheets or imported from

the database. The operations policy and

rules associated with reservoirs or other

system components within the basin are

added to RiverWare through an existing

constraint editor. Current modeling

methods within RiverWare include basic

reservoir simulation and water distribution

through the network using linear programming, goal programming, and rule-based

simulation approaches. As part of the

Yakima River Basin WARSMP,

 water-rights allocation is being

developed as an additional

modeling method. Hourly, daily,

weekly, and monthly

computational time steps

are supported.

RiverWare is a general-purpose,

interactive model-building tool

used to develop water-distribution models for short-term

operations and scheduling, midterm operations, and planning.

Data derived from the original digital

elevation model (for example, slope,

aspect) and other gridded attribute data

(for example, vegetation, soil depth) can

be used to estimate selected MRU and

subbasin parameters. MRUs were characterized using the Weasel, based on

information about landscape characteristics, precipitation, and soil characteristics.

Initial characterization of subbasins

resulted in about 1,000 MRUs.

 Within the modeling process, a daily

water balance is computed for each MRU

on the basis of climate inputs (daily values

of air temperature, precipitation, and solar

radiation) and model parameters. The

responses of all MRUs are summed on a

input into the HDB for use by the river

and reservoir management model component of the DSS, the RiverWare system.

The RiverWare system is being applied by

Reclamation’s analysts.

The RiverWare System

The RiverWare System is the river

and reservoir management model

being used in the San Juan and

Yakima River Basins (fig. 5).

Model Linkages

Model Control Workspace Policy Utilities

RiverWare 1.2 - yakima_to_hotlink

Yakima_and Cabin

Keechelus Reservoir

Keechelus Inflow

Keechelus Outflow

Yakima_and_Kachess

KEEW to EASW Local

Eastern Diversion Dam

Big Creek Reach Yakima R at Easton Data

Yakima and Big

Kachess Outflow

Kachess Reservoir

Figure 5. Computer screen showing model layout of

RiverWare for the upper Yakima River, showing two

reservoirs, a diversion dam, inflows, outflows, and

six reaches.

Figure 4. Location of 59 subbasins

delineated using GIS Weasel.

Linking of models in the DSS

provides a way to examine waterresource problems at reach and

cross section scales using streamflow that

reflects basin-wide water resources. Many

water-management issues, such as

fisheries and water-fowl habitat, waterquality concerns, and channel maintenance

for river recreation, need reach-specific

hydraulic and chemical information,

conditioned on upstream streamflow. That

is, the detailed hydrology of a given reach

must include the constraints of the overall

physical hydrology and water-management within the basin.

 One way to include these constraints is

to use reach-specific models within the

modeling sequence. Several reachspecific models are included in MMS and

can be linked with the watershed model or

RiverWare output. For example, a onedimensional hydraulic model using daily

streamflow from RiverWare, along with

detailed local topography and bed material

information, can be used to predict a

stage-discharge relation, reach-averaged

vertical distributions of velocity, and stress

at a cross section (Nelson and others,

1991). These relations provide the

necessary hydraulic input to compute bed

sediment discharge (Parker and others,

1992). Ident- ifying sediment discharge

and associated hydraulic conditions, and

predicting changes that occur with

alterations in the hydrograph, are critical

to an understanding of channel and habitat

maintenance.
Future Efforts

A linkage being examined for the the

Yakima River Basin is the use of riverreach habitat characteristics in MMS and

linkage of them to RiverWare. For this

work, the relation between stream networks and the upstream area, slope,

precipitation, runoff, forest density, and

land use will be analyzed. For this effort,

a stream network was defined using the

GIS Weasel based on the digital elevation

model. A stream channel was defined

wherever the drainage area was greater

than 0.47 mi resulting in a detailed

network (fig. 6). This network of more

than 7,000 miles will then be examined for

relations to the basin characteristics, stream-slope (gradient),

width, and flood-plain extent.

If the results prove

promising, the information

may be used to develop

habitat-type curves for a

MMS module and linkage to

RiverWare.

References

Fulp, T.J., Vickers, W.B., Williams, B., and

King, D.L., 1995, Decision support for

water resources management in the

Colorado River region: in L. Ahuja, J.

Leppert, K. Rojas, and E. Seely (eds.),

Workshop on Computer Applications in

Water Management, Colorado Water

Resources Research Institute, Fort Collins,

CO., Information Series no. 79, p. 24-27.

Leavesley, G.H., Lichty, R.W., Troutman,

B.M., and Saindon, L.G., 1983, Precipitation-runoff modeling system—users

manual: U.S. Geological Survey WaterResources Investigations Report

83-4238, 207 p.

Continued work

in the

WARSMP will be

in the Yakima River Basin

and the Rio Grande Basin,

New Mexico. The goal of

each new project is to

develop additional algorithms to the MMS and the

RiverWare system in order to

help solve additional waterresource problems, especially

related to biologic problems

and needs.

Leavesley, G.H., Restrepo, P.J.,Markstrom,

S.L., Dixon, M., and Stannard, L.G., 1996,

The modular modeling system (MMS)—

user’s manual: U.S. Geological Survey

Open-File Report 96-151, 142 p.

Leavesley, G.H., Viger, R.J., Markstrom,

S.L.,and Brewer, M.S., 1997, A modular

approach to integrating environmental

modeling and GIS: in Proceedings of 15th

IMACS World Congress on Scientific

Computation, Modelling, and Applied

Mathematics, Berlin, Germany.

Nelson, J.M., Emmett, W.W., and Smith,

J.D., 1991, Flow and sediment transport in

rough channels: in Shou-Shen Fan and

Yung-Huang Kuo, eds., Proceedings of the

Fifth Federal Interagency Sedimentation

Conference, v. 1, p. 4-55 to 4-62.

Parker, R.S., Nelson, J.M., Elliott, J.G.,

and Carey, W.P., 1992, Changes in bed

mobility due to altered streamflows in

cobble-bedded mountain streams in the

Gunnison River basin: EOS, Transaction

of American Geophysical Union, v. 73, no.

43, p.239.

Figure 6. The stream network

defined for the Yakima River Basin

using the GIS Weasel.

Contacts

U.S. Geological Survey:

Randy Parker, (303) 236-4882, ext. 295 e-mail: rsparker@usgs.gov

George Leavesley, (303) 236-5026 e-mail: george@usgs.gov

John Vaccaro, (253) 428-3600, ext. 2620 e-mail: jvaccaro@usgs.gov

Bureau of Reclamation:

Terry Fulp, (303) 492-8572 e-mail: tfulp@cadswes.colorado.edu

Don Frevert, (303) 236-0123, ext. 225 e-mail: dfrevert@ibr8gw80.usbr.gov

Chris Lynch, (509) 575-5848, ext. 252 e-mail: clynch@pn.usbr.gov

Warren Sharp, (509) 575-5848, ext. 283 e-mail: wsharp@pn.usbr.gov

World Wide Web sites:

http://wwwbrr.cr.usgs.gov/mms http://

www.usbr.gov/rsmg/warsmp

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U.S. Department of the Interior USGS Fact Sheet 037-98

U.S. Geologic Survey Apri 1998