The Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS) was developed by a multi-disciplinary team of USDA scientists in collaboration with other agencies and private cooperators in response to customer requests, primarily USDA-NRCS, for improved wind erosion prediction technology. WEPS is designed to provide estimates of soil loss by wind from cultivated, agricultural fields. It is intended to replace the predominately empirical Wind Erosion Equation (WEQ) as a prediction tool for those who plan soil conservation systems, conduct environmental planning, or assess offsite impacts caused by wind erosion. WEPS also has capabilities for other land management situations where wind affected soil movement is a problem. WEPS 1.0 consists of the computer implementation of the WEPS science model with a graphical user interface designed to provide easy-to-use methods of entering inputs to the model and obtaining output reports. WEPS is a process-based, daily time-step, wind erosion simulation model. As such, WEPS simulates not only the basic wind erosion processes, but also the processes that modify a soil's susceptibility to wind erosion. The structure of WEPS is modular and consists of a user interface, a science model including seven submodels, and four databases. The user interface is used to create input files using information from user inputs and the databases. In a practical application, new input files will usually be created using previous input files as templates modified within the user-interface.
