Abstract
Sediment budget analyses require watershed scale evaluation of road erosion and delivery. The Watershed Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model, as developed by the USDA Forest Service, simulates sediment detachment and delivery for a road, fill, and buffer system. Time and budget constraints typically prevent a comprehensive sediment loading analysis using WEPP throughout a watershed. We present an automated approach to run the hillslope version of WEPP to simulate sediment detachment and delivery for a large road network. Road attributes are acquired from global positioning system-assisted road surveys and mapped in a geographic information system (GIS). After data manipulation in GIS and Excel, the required input files for WEPP are built. The approach can be applied to multiple road designs and climate regimes, with unique attributes for each road segment. We applied the automated approach to the 3,040km2 South Fork Clearwater River watershed for 1,017km of road divided into 6,955 road segments. The availability of analysis capabilities of the WEPP results from large road networks within GIS provides a spatially explicit tool for the management and evaluation of sediment production throughout large road networks.
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