Minnesota River Basin Sediment Delivery Analysis (FINAL)

The Minnesota River basin HSPF models have a long history. Models for six of the 8-digit Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC8) basins were originally developed by MPCA in the 1990s and subsequently expanded and calibrated to include the entire basin from Lac qui Parle to Jordan, MN by Tetra Tech in 2002. Those models were used to support the development of a nutrient/dissolved oxygen TMDL and associated wasteload allocations. Tetra Tech (2008) subsequently refined these models for sediment simulation. These models were discretized at approximately the HUC10 scale. Tetra Tech later developed finer-resolution (HUC12-scale) models of the Chippewa and Hawk-Yellow Medicine HUC8 sub-models. MPCA then contracted with RESPEC to develop HUC12-scale models of the entire basin downstream of Lac qui Parle, as well as to extend the models in time through 2012. That effort was completed in 2014.