QGeoWEPP: An open-source geospatial interface to enable high-resolution watershed-based soil erosion assessment

Predicting soil erosion by water is an essential natural resource management activity. The Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model is a process-based continuous simulation tool based on erosion mechanics and channel hydraulics. Due to the extensive data requirements, preparing input parameter settings for WEPP can be time-consuming. A Geospatial Interface for WEPP (GeoWEPP) overcame this major disadvantage but had limitations regarding keeping track of operating systems and proprietary software updates. QGeoWEPP is a newly developed open-source QGIS-based GeoWEPP, offering additional novel user-based customizations of model simulations including validation data sets. QGeoWEPP provides a platform for applying WEPP at the hillslope and watershed scales that integrates the whole model application and validation process. QGeoWEPP allows applying WEPP in any study area worldwide with minimum data limitations and more spatial and temporal capabilities in areas such as soil and water conservation, land management, geohazard assessment due to land use and climate change, and many more.