Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment

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• AGWA: GIS’s Future on the Web
  
Dave Goodrich, Ph.D., Darius Semmens, Ph.D., and Averil Cate – USDA ARS
• AGWA (“Dot AGWA”) is the Web version of the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment tool developed by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, in cooperation with the Environmental Protection Agency and the University of Arizona. AGWA was developed as a multipurpose hydrologic analysis system for use by watershed, water resource, land use, and biological resource managers and scientists developing watershed and basin-scale studies. AGWA incorporates several spatial datasets, GIS mapping, analysis, and visualization tools, and surface water hydrologic models into one package, providing easy access to these features. The current version of AGWA is a desktop-based application driven by ESRI’s ArcView 3.x software (see tucson.ars.ag.gov/agwa/).AGWA is currently being developed at the USDA’s Southwest Watershed Research Center, also with the University of Arizona’s Watershed Resources Program and EPA.
• AGWA takes the same features in AGWA and makes them available through a Web-based interface.
• AGWA uses ESRI’s ArcIMS and Spatial Data Engine (SDE) and Oracle’s spatial database to provide the GIS data and interactions.
• AGWA also uses Java-based Web server technology to connect the surface water hydrologic models to the application. The user is no longer restricted to the desktop version of the application, but can access the program remotely using a Web browser. The tool leverages client-server architecture so that changes and improvements in core components will not disrupt end-user interaction with the application. Because the application is Web-based, users also have immediate access to the latest versions of the software and GIS data.
• AGWA will be available in late 2004 or early 2005.

For more information, contact David Goodrich at 602-437-1702 x241, or dgoodrich@uswcl.ars.ag.gov.