Author(s)

C. Chang, F. Ashenhurst, S. Damaia & W. Mann

Abstract

The Ontario Flow Assessment Techniques (OFAT), currently being developed by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), Canada, is a tool to automatically estimate flow information for watersheds in Ontario. OFAT is a user-friendly, interactive Geographic Information System (GIS)-based software with an accompanying database used to estimate various flow regimes. These flow regimes include low flows, flood flows, mean annual flows, minimum instream flow requirements, and bankfull flows. OFAT has been created by automating a number of existing regional hydrologic models for Ontario, with the support of GIS to provide various physiographic and climatic inputs to the models. OFAT is a useful tool that effectively and efficiently manages spatial watershed databases and performs hydrologic analyses to support decisions related to water resources planning and management. Although OFAT has been designed specifically for watersheds in the province of Ontario, Canada, the ideas/concepts of OFAT can be applied to elsewhere in the world.

Keywords