Setting Up a Computer Simulation Model in an Arkansas Watershed for the MRBI Program

The Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative (MRBI) program launched by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) aims to improve the water quality within the Mississippi River Basin. Lake Conway Point Remove (LCPR) water- shed, being one of the MRBI watersheds, is a potential candidate for evaluating the effectiveness of MRBI program. Recommended best management practices (BMPs) for LCPR watershed are pond, wetland, pond and wetland, cover crops, vegetative filter strips, grassed waterways, and forage and biomass planting. Before simulating these practices, it is essential to prepare the data needed for model setup to avoid the issue of garbage in, garbage out. This chapter focuses on detailed steps of preparing the data for model setup along with the calibration and validation of the model. The calibration and validation results were within the acceptable bounds. The results from this study provide the data to help simulate the MRBI best management practices effectively and prioritize monitoring needs for collecting watershed response data in LCPR. The model for at model and satisfactory by studies. Results from this study can be used to evaluate the relative effectiveness of MRBI-recommended agricultural BMPs for analyzing and improving in similar data-limited watersheds.