WEPP-COMPARE: A web-based decision support system for comprehensive land management and soil erosion assessment

Abstract

While the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) provides a robust process-based modeling framework since 1985 by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), applications could be fairly challenging for those who do not possess professional training. In 2013, the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) initiated collaborations with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Purdue University, the University of Idaho, and Colorado State University to build an interface, dubbed WEPP-COMPARE (WEPP-Comprehensive Operation Management Practice Assessment and Rotation Engine). WEPP-COMPARE was developed to fulfill requirements as a web-based, spatial-distributed, and user-friendly decision support system that can be implemented to derive relevant and visualized soil erosion predictions for the entire United States. In addition, WEPP-COMPARE is available to the public and accessible anywhere at the county level in all 50 states and five major territories within a few minutes and doesn't require much knowledge of modeling or analytical data in advance. Wide varieties of long-term crop growth and conservation scenarios are ready to derive relevant and visualize outputs. Furthermore, a detailed list of management practices available for users to make decisions on crops to be planted to get maximum yield with corresponding soil loss map. One can take advantage of this tool and make timely preliminary comparisons before further investment of detailed investigation.