Hydrological Simulation Program-Fortran (HSPF) is one of the most widely used software packages for modeling hydrology and water quality in watersheds; it has been used around the world for almost four decades. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) supports the continued development of HSPF; the latest HSPF version is available on the USEPA website. Latest version of HSPF is available as a plugin for Better Assessment Science Integrating point and Nonpoint Sources (BASINS). BASINS is a GIS based environmental analysis system and can be used for pre-processing and post-processing HSPF models.
 
USEPA used to provide regular BASINS/HSPF training. However, the support of such trainings discontinued over the past decade. To fill the gap, many private organizations have been providing client-specific HSPF training. Dr. Anurag Mishra has provided BASINS and HSPF training to multiple clients, professionals, and students in the past 12 years. 

Overall Goal

The overall goal of the training is to make the user familiar with the mechanics of HSPF, so that they can focus their efforts on the science of watershed modeling.

Training Design

DSI is pleased to bring this training online and provide it to the modeling community for free. This training from scratch and developed it as a web based course that will be beneficial to users of different level of expertise. This course focuses on the mechanics and design of HSPF and only slightly touches on the science behind watershed modeling. 
 
The training is divided into multiple courses and each course has multiple videos. Each video is less than ten minutes long and answers one specific question. Users can view the videos in sequence or pick and choose the topics of their interest.
 
As the new materials are prepared, videos and files for new courses will be available. You can subscribe to the DSI’s HSPF YouTube channel or GitHub repository to get a notification as soon as new materials are available.

Software Requirements

To follow along, I highly recommend installing following software:
  1. BASINS4.5:  https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-04/basins4.5.2020.03.31.exe 
  2. HSPF12.5 Plugin for HSPF: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2020-06/hspf12.5plugin.2020.06.exe
  3. SARA Time Series Utility: https://github.com/respec/BASINS/releases/tag/TSUtility
  4. HSPEXP+: https://github.com/respec/BASINS/releases/tag/HSPEXP%2B3.1beta2
  5. Text editing Software: Notepad++, UltraEdit, Atom or vscode
  6. Python: Use Anaconda to install Python: https://www.anaconda.com/products/individual 
  7. Python Libraries: tsgettoolbox, wdmtoolbox, and hspfbintoolbox 

Example files

The training files are available in the HSPF Training repository of DSI. Cloning the repository will ensure that you have the latest training files.

Recommended Documents

  1. HSPF Users Manual (Available with HSPF installation)
  2. BASINS Users Manual (Available with BASINS installation)
  3. WinHSPF Users Manual (Available with HSPF installation)
  4. HSPEXP+ Users Manual (Available with HSPEXP+ installation)
  5. BASINS Technical Notes
  6. Evaporation ATLAS
  7. MPCA Technical Note on Water Quality Paramterization

Course Videos

HSPF100 Course Playlist

HSPF110: What is a Weather Data Management (WDM) file?

HSPF120: How do I import time series in text format to a WDM file?

HSPF130: How do I import NLDAS data using BASINS download tool?

HSPF140: How do I download NLDAS/GLDAS data using Python script?

HSPF150: What is the basic structure of a User’s Control Input

HSPF160: How do I output HSPF model simulation results in text, and HSPF binary format?

HSPF170: How do I output HSPF model simulation results in a WDM format?

HSPF180: What are the common errors while running an HSPF model simulation?

HSPF200 Course Playlist.

HSPF210: What are the different hydrological parameters for the impervious land operation (IMPLND)?

HSPF220: What are the different hydraulic parameters of a free- flowing reach or a mixed reservoir (RCHRES) operation in a HSPF model? And how do these operations connect?

HSPF230: What are the different hydrologic parameters of a pervious land operation (PERLND) in an HSPF model?

HSPF300 Course Playlist

HSPF310: How do I create a new project in BASINS?

HSPF320: How do I create a simple HSPF model in BASINS?

HSPF330: How do I create an HSPF model in BASINS with multiple model segments?

HSPF340: Reviewing the HSPF model created by BASINS.

HSPF350: How do I update an HSPF Model using a starter model?

HSPF360: How do I edit a UCI file quickly in a text editor?

HSPF400 Course Playlist

HSPF410: How do I use HSPEXP+ for hydrology calibration with an HSPF model?

HSPF420: Reviewing the output generated by HSPEXP+ for hydrologic calibration?

HSPF430: How do I generate water balance report using HSPEXP+?

HSPF500 Course Playlist

HSPF510: How do I simulate sediment erosion in HSPF?

HSPF520: Review the sediment erosion parameters in HSPF.

HSPF530: How do I extract sediment erosion reports using HSPEXP+?

HSPF600 Course Playlist

HSPF610: How do I Simulate Water Quality Using HSPF?

HSPF620: Review Water Quality Parameters for Land Operations.

HSPF630: Review Water Quality Parameters for RCHRES Operations.

HSPF640: How do I use HSPEXP+ to Generate Model Reports.

The course description and videos will be available in 2021.