Better Assessment Science Integrating point and Non-point Sources
The official repository of BASINS is: https://github.com/respec/BASINS
For official releases and further information, visit the Environmental Protection Agency:
https://www.epa.gov/ceam/better-assessment-science-integrating-point-and-non-point-sources-basins
BASINS is a large system I worked on for many years at AQUA TERRA Consultants, now a division of RESPEC.
BASINS uses GIS for viewing maps of a study area, for processing data that is provided as map layers into environmental model inputs, and for viewing model outputs.
Environmental models are designed to predict how changes to an area (such as development near rivers or a changing climate) might change water quality or contribute to flooding or drought. BASINS works with more than one model. Some models are legacy FORTRAN or C++ code, others are written in more modern languages like R and Python.
For an example, see the following publication in which I am credited as co-author:
Using the Climate Assessment Tool (CAT) in U.S. EPA BASINS Integrated Modeling System to Assess Watershed Vulnerability to Climate Change 2007 Water Science and Technology https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17978432/
One major focus of mine was collecting necessary data (automatically downloading map layers, rainfall, census, land use, etc.) for the area of interest from a variety of websites. I was primarily responsible for the design and implementation of the data download functionality, a library named D4EM (Data for Environmental Modeling) which has also been used by internal EPA projects.
I am credited as co-author of a paper for working closely with people at NASA to get them to implement an API for retrieving satellite data as a series of values for a particular location instead of only as a map of the whole country for one moment in time:
Bridging the Gap between NASA Hydrological Data and the Geospatial Community Feb 11, 2011, American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20110008139
Another focus of my work was making the huge amount of data generated by models visible using reports, maps, and graphs.
I was involved in the decision when the BASINS team decided to adopt the open source MapWindow GIS: https://github.com/MapWindow
There was some pressure to use a proprietary GIS, but we decided that we wanted all stakeholders to be able to freely download and use our system without costly licensing.
We published a paper about our use of MapWindow GIS:
BASINS 4.0: Expanding Capabilities in an Open GIS Framework Mar 17, 2008 AWRA Spring Specialty Conference: GIS and Water Resources V https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251562530_BASINS_40_Expanding_Capabilities_in_an_Open_GIS_Framework
MapWindow GIS is largely the work of others, but I did some C# work on it, helping to extend its capabilities as needed for BASINS.
You can see that I was the #1 contributor to BASINS as MarkGrayRESPEC: https://github.com/respec/BASINS/graphs/contributors