Cypress Creek Project Decision Support System

Surface- and ground-water resources in the Hill Country area are threatened by intense urbanization and increasing demands for water resources. There are many concerns about the impacts of this development on nonpoint source pollution to local surface waters, compounded by potential reductions in spring flows due to declining aquifer levels. The Cypress Creek Project recognizes that planning in the area would greatly benefit from a decision support system that provides stakeholders and regulatory agencies with a watershed-scale analysis of these potential impacts to determine which areas are most sensitive to development pressure, and where BMPs and other conservation measures may be sited most effectively.

The Cypress Creek Project Decision Support System (CCP-DSS) is a modeling and results visualization package based on the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA2) tool. AGWA2 is an interface for ESRI’s ArcGIS jointly developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service, and the University of Arizona to automate the parameterization and execution of two commonly-used hydrologic models, SWAT and KINEROS. The CCP-DSS is based on the AGWA2 system and in addition has been populated with all the relevant local data to perform scenario analyses on the Cypress Creek watershed. The CCP-DSS also includes a multi-criteria analysis package to evaluate scenario outcomes using model outputs and user-defined criteria.

The CCP-DSS was developed through an iterative, collaborative process with the Watershed Science Lab at Texas State University-San Marcos, technical experts, and local representatives from the DSS/Technical Subcommittee. The Cypress Creek Project would like to thank everyone involved for their invaluable contributions to the development of this system, and particularly the US EPA and TCEQ for providing the funding for its development.

It is strongly recommended that users attend a training session with Cypress Creek Project staff before using the software, to ensure that users fully understand its capabilities and limitations. To obtain the CCP-DSS software installation and data file package, or to inquire about training sessions, contact Adrian Vogl at avogl@txstate.edu.