Watershed Analysis Tool (WAT)
and User Manual

The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the DOE.

This material was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States nor the United States Department of Energy, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.

Watershed Analysis Tool (WAT) and User Manual

The Watershed Analysis Tool (WAT) is an aid that allows effective and efficient decision making for operators, land managers and land owners alike. The WAT will help operators manage produced water while 1) remaining protective of the environment and 2) continuing to economically develop domestic energy resources. The WAT can rapidly analyze various water management portfolio alternatives in the preliminary/conceptual design phase, estimate capital and operation costs during project planning, aid in the drafting of appropriate NPDES discharge permits and enhance the user’s ability to manage produced water in general.

Water quality and flow data (USGS, 2006) from the five main Powder River Basin surface watersheds (Powder, Little Powder, Tongue, Belle Fourche, and Cheyenne) have been incorporated into the WAT to aid in the use of the water mixing portion of the model. The WAT does not have data from every watershed in the United States due to size and logistical limitations of the model to be all-encompassing of the United States. However, the WAT has been designed so that this feature can easily be expanded upon in other oil and gas basins (Big Horn, San Juan, etc) or in smaller sub-basins of the Powder River Basin as deemed necessary by demand in these areas. Please contact Dan Arthur at ALL Consulting to arrange for a copy of the WAT with data specific to your basin of interest.

The User Manual was prepared to explain how an end user can properly and efficiently use the WAT. The User Manual is equipped with suggestions on how to maximize the use of the WAT, and an Example Case Study is shown to provide an example of how to use the various features of the WAT. Two copies of the WAT are available for download; one has example data loaded into it (Note: The data is not qualified for actual analysis-only as an example) while the other has been cleared of all data entries. Please save the WAT to a local folder on your computer and select “Enable Macros” when opening the WAT.

Note: If you choose to open or run the WAT in the Browser window, some of the functionality of the application will not be available.

To get started check out the WAT User Manual

WAT with example data

WAT without data