Abstract:

Tillamook Bay is located in the Pacific Northwest on the coast of Oregon.  The bay was accepted into the EPA's National Estuary Program in 1992.  The two priority problems in the watershed are loadings of fecal coliform and sediment to the streams and the bay itself.  The fecal coliform loadings are believed to be linked primarily to the active dairy industry, while the sediments loadings are believed to be linked primarily to the logging/forest industry.

In order to model the loadings in the watershed, the hydrology must be modeled first.  This term project will focus on:

        1.  Alteration of the Digital Elevation Model to accurately delineate stream paths and sub-watersheds.
        2.  Separation of baseflow from surface runoff.
        3.  Derivation of relationships between precipation and baseflow and precipitation and surface runoff.
        4.  Creation of spatially distributed grid representations of baseflow and surface runoff for the watershed.