To whom it may concern.

I'm currently undergoing my Masters Programme in Water Resources in Nigeria. I have proposed to use WEAP in my Project. What are the input data I'll need to use in WEAP.
Thanks in advance.

Typical WEAP Data Requirements

Data gathering is always one of the hardest parts about doing an analysis. The more data you have the better. Also, monthly time series data will be helpful in calibration/validation. Here are some examples of useful data when completing a WEAP analysis:

• Schematics, maps, etc. of the river basin you wish to model
• Demand data (municipal, domestic, industrial, irrigation, livestock, etc.)
• Drivers (e.g., population, irrigated area, etc.) and projections of those drivers for scenarios
• Withdrawal, either total or per activity (e.g., per person, per hectare)
• Consumption (% of withdrawal not returned) and routing of any return flow
• Monthly variation
• Loss and reuse
• Demand-side management policies, either current or possible future policies
• Priorities and preferences for supply (e.g., who has first claim on river water, and for demands connected to multiple supplies, which is their preference or ratio of withdrawals)
• Transmission link data - Information on links between supply and demand
• Pipeline capacity
• Costs (may include the cost of the supply as well as the transmission cost, or be viewed as a price the consumer has to pay)
• Losses
• Hydrology
• River gauge flows as monthly time series data
• Diversions
• Instream or downstream (i.e. out of the basin study area) flow requirements
• If using runoff model, precipitation and temperature time series data
• Groundwater
• Storage capacity
• Initial storage
• Maximum withdrawal
• Natural Recharge
• Gains from and losses to adjacent rivers
• Reservoirs
• Inflow (if not on a river)
• Initial and total storage capacity
• Volume-elevation curve (to calculate evaporation or for hydropower)
• Monthly evaporation rate
• Levels of reservoir storage (inactive zone, buffer zone, conservation zone, flood control zone)
• Hydropower: Max and min. turbine flows, tailwater elevation, efficiency, etc.
• Other Supply Sources (imports, transfers, desalinization, etc.)
• Surface Water Quality and Wastewater Treatment Facilities
• Pollution generation by sectors
• Percent removal of pollutants by treatment process
• Routing of wastewater or treated wastewater
• Pollutant decay rates
• Flow-stage-width curves for river reaches
• River water temperature time series data for each reach

Sir, I am doing Masters in Water Resources and i have to use WEAP in my dissertation.

I want to know the format of the data you have mentioned above. eg. Do we need DEM of reservoirs and demand sites. What all shape files we need or we just randomly locate the demand sites and supply sources?

Dear Aashi,

It depends on how you are structuring your model. I would recommend having the pour point for a catchment at the location of your reservoir - in that event, it would be helpful to have a shapefile with the location of the reservoir on the river. Structuring your model this way will allow WEAP to calculate exactly how much drainage area contributes rainfall to the catchment upstream of your reservoir.

You can structure your model similarly for inflows for demand sites (use them as pour points to make catchments) but the demand sites themselves don't need to be perfectly located on your WEAP area schematic.

You will not need a DEM for your model - the WEAP 2018 version downloads DEMs to allow you to delineate your catchments automatically.