The Water Erosion Prediction Project Climate Assessment Tool: Predicting Soil Erosion in the Face of Changing Precipitation Regimes.

The Water Erosion Prediction Project Climate Assessment Tool (WEPPCAT) is an easy-to-use erosion model that allows users to adjust climate inputs for user-specified climate scenarios within the continental United States.  WEPPCAT allows the user to modify monthly mean maximum and minimum temperatures, monthly mean number of wet days, monthly mean precipitation, and rainfall intensity in order to assess predicted changes in surface water runoff and erosion rates.  The model allows the user to assess erosion changes under a large variety of land management alternatives, including end-of-field filter strip.  An important aspect of the tool is that databases for the model are pre-constructed, it does not require specialized scientific expertise to run, and scenarios are quick and easy to set up.  This paper presents the conceptual and technical basis for WEPPCAT, and an example application is given for soil loss on a transect running North-South from Minnesota to Louisiana under several climate change scenarios.