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HSPF

Hydrological Simulation Program – FORTRAN (HSPF) is a computer-code model designed to simulate watershed hydrology and water quality processes.

HSPF is capable of simulating water quality and runoff over pervious land areas (via overland flow, interflow, and groundwater flow), in urban areas where little or no infiltration occurs and through stream channels and mixed reservoirs. HSPF uses continuous rainfall and other meteorological records to compute streamflow hydrographs and pollutographs and may simulate any period from a few minutes to hundreds of years.

HSPF is generally used to assess the effects of land-use change, reservoir operations, point or nonpoint source treatment alternatives, and flow diversions. Although data requirements are extensive, HPSF is a robust and flexible model capable of simulating hydrologic and water quality processes in watersheds. 

Intended User: Model is designed to be handled by professionals with a watershed modeling background.

Geographic focus: Model is designed to simulate any watershed, provided the user enters the appropriate input information.

Scale: Watershed

Developer: Aqua Terra Consultants and USGS. h2osoft@usgs.gov

  • How are source contributions estimated?
  • How is pollutant load removal estimated?
  • What does the user need to input?
  • What can the user expect as outputs?
  • Considerations
  • Additional Features