The overall goal of this conference is to bring experts and students together to discuss and explore the evolution and future developments of watershed modeling. The objectives are to:

1. Recognize the building blocks and honor the early developers of watershed modeling codes, and tell the story lines of advancements and failures over the past five decades;
2. Acknowledge and establish the current state of the science/technology; and
3. Project future trends and initiatives for watershed modeling over the next ten years.

"Past" - Some of the scientists and engineers who have been instrumental in the development and advancement of watershed modeling over the past fifty years will speak at this session

"Current" - The current state of watershed modeling will be explored in this session by technical presentations that focus on current watershed modeling issues and approaches. Some examples of presentation topics include: lumped versus distributed parameterization; date integration (e.g., satellite data); code integration (surface and ground water); multiple spatial scales; support tools such as GUIs, utilities and post processing scripts; frameworks, etc. Decision support systems aimed at cost-effective strategy development at watershed scales will be reviewed. Of particular interest are the opportunities to use these decision support systems and other watershed models to include consideration of coincidental events such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, hurricanes, large long-duration tornados, area-wide power failures, extremely long participation events, etc.

"Future" - This session is designed to discuss future trends and initiatives in watershed modeling. Discussions will focus on defining watershed modeling research and technological needs in areas such as climate change, adaptive management, groundwater and surface water interactions, biological endpoints, linked/integrated and distributed 1D-2D models in urban and mixed land use, integrated interfaces, and other emerging areas of science and technology such as remote sensing, LIDAR, digital orthophotos, and GIS programming to support parameterization. Distinction can be made between needs specific to research, and those technologies ready for demonstration and validation. Research or funding organizations can benefit from these discussions to develop future statements of needs for their programs.

The conference is ideally suited for practicing professionals, academics, regulatory agencies and students working in the field of watershed resources by offering a broad perception of the evolution and future developments of watershed modeling. Federal and other agencies developing research and development initiatives related to watershed modeling will benefit as well.

Conference Co-Chairs:
Anthony S. Donigian, Jr., AQUA TERRA Consultants
Richard Field, US Environmental Protection Agency

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