scholarly journals Evaluating the SWAT model to predict streamflow, nitrate loadings and crop yields in a small agricultural catchment

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Bauwe ◽  
Petra Kahle ◽  
Bernd Lennartz

Abstract. This study aimed to evaluate the applicability of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to predict streamflow, nitrate loadings and crop yields for a small agricultural catchment in northeastern Germany. To this end, a 167 ha catchment was delineated consisting of 10 hydrological response units. Daily data for streamflow and nitrate loadings from 2004 to 2015 were used to calibrate and validate the model, while annual values for crop yields (winter wheat, winter barley, rapeseed, maize silage) were available. In addition, the detailed field maps provided by the local farmer were used to implement exact crop rotations and nitrogen fertilization into the model. Nash-Sutcliffe-Efficiencies for streamflow were 0.54 during the calibration and 0.57 for the validation period. The modeling performance for nitrate loadings were lower with 0.31 for the calibration and 0.42 for the validation period. The average crop yields were reproduced well, while SWAT failed to reproduce the inter-annual crop yield variations. A scenario analysis revealed that a slight decrease of nitrogen fertilization leads to significant reductions in nitrate loadings, while crop yields remained on a high level. The outcome of the study may help practitioners to operate according to an economic and environmental optimal N management. Nevertheless, experimental studies with varying fertilization intensities at catchment scale are needed to underpin the modeling results.

2009 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 49-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Q. D. Lam ◽  
B. Schmalz ◽  
N. Fohrer

Abstract. The aims of this study are to identify the capacities of applying an ecohydrological model for simulating flow and to assess the impact of point and non-point source pollution on nitrate loads in a complex lowland catchment, which has special hydrological characteristics in comparison with those of other catchments. The study area Kielstau catchment has a size of approximately 50 km2 and is located in the North German lowlands. The water quality is not only influenced by the predominating agricultural land use in the catchment as cropland and pasture, but also by six municipal wastewater treatment plants. Ecohydrological models like the SWAT model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) are useful tools for simulating nutrient loads in river catchments. Diffuse entries from the agriculture resulting from fertilizers as well as punctual entries from the wastewater treatment plants are implemented in the model set-up. The results of this study show good agreement between simulated and measured daily discharges with a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency and a correlation coefficient of 0.76 and 0.88 for the calibration period (November 1998 to October 2004); 0.75 and 0.92 for the validation period (November 2004 to December 2007). The model efficiency for daily nitrate loads is 0.64 and 0.5 for the calibration period (June 2005 to May 2007) and the validation period (June 2007 to December 2007), respectively. The study revealed that SWAT performed satisfactorily in simulating daily flow and nitrate loads at the lowland catchment in Northern Germany.


Water SA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2 April) ◽  
Author(s):  
BC Scott-Shaw ◽  
TR Hill ◽  
JS Gillham

Hydrological modelling is an appropriate approach to investigate the effect of interactions of climate, land-use and soil on the water-use of natural or managed ecosystems, in particular where spatial heterogeneity exists. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model has evolved into one of the most widely used catchment-scale hydrological models, which has been extensively used to better understand hydrological processes. In this paper, the SWAT model was adopted to simulate a wattle plantation in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. User-defined vegetation growth, soil and management input parameters were constructed for the study area based on site measurements. These parameters were subsequently modified using the Sequential Uncertainty Fitting (SUFI-2) analysis routine to calibrate the model. The calibrated model captured seasonal trends in the observed sediment and streamflow data. The compilation of spatially explicit sediment output provides a useful approach to manage catchments by identifying high erosion-risk areas. The SWAT model, using site-specific input parameters, provides a platform for subsequent hydrological and sediment modelling in South Africa.


2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zakaria Kateb ◽  
Hamid Bouchelkia ◽  
Abdelhalim Benmansour ◽  
Fadila Belarbi

AbstractThe dam of Beni Haroun is the largest in Algeria, and its transfer structures feed seven provinces (wilayas) in the eastern part of Algeria. Due to its importance in the region, it has now become urgent to study its watershed as well as all the parameters that can influence the water and solid intakes that come into the dam. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is used to quantify the water yields and identify the vulnerable spots using two scenarios. The first one uses worldwide data (GlobCover and HWSD), and the second one employs remote sensing and digital soil mapping in order to determine the most suitable data to obtain the best results. The SWAT model can be used to reproduce the hydrological cycle within the watershed. Concerning the first scenario, during the calibration period, R2 was found between 0.45 and 0.69, and the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) coefficient was within the interval from 0.63 to 0.80; in the validation period, R2 lied between 0.47 and 0.59, and the NSE coefficient ranged from 0.58 to 0.64. As for the second scenario, during the calibration period, R2 was between 0.60 and 0.66, and the NSE coefficient was between 0.55 and 0.75; however, during the validation period, R2 was in the interval from 0.56 to 0.70, and the NSE coefficient within the range 0.64–0.70. These findings indicate that the data obtained using remote sensing and digital soil mapping provide a better representation of the watershed and give a better hydrological modelling.


2013 ◽  
Vol 340 ◽  
pp. 942-946 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Xu ◽  
Hui Qing Peng

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to simulate runoff yield in Tao River Basin on ArcView GIS platform. The main objective was to validate the performance of SWAT and the feasibility of this model as a simulator of runoff in a catchment. The investigation was conducted using a 6-year historical runoff record from 2001 to 2008 (2001-2004 for calibration and 2005-2008 for validation). The simulated monthly runoff matched the observed values satisfactorily, with Re was less than 20%, R2 > 0.78 and Nash-suttclife (Ens)>0.8 for both calibration and validation period at 4 hydrological stations. These indicated that the simulation of runoff was reasonable, reflecting the validity of SWAT model in Tao River Basin.


2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
pp. 1753-1772 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaolei Wang ◽  
Yiqing Zhang ◽  
Yi Luo ◽  
Lin Sun ◽  
Muhammad Shafeeque

Abstract Glacier changes are driven by glacier melt, which in turn affects streamflow. This paper describes an accounting scheme for glacier area change distribution across elevation profiles for application in the glacier module of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. In addition to volume-area scaling relationship in the module, the paper introduced volume-length scaling relations to estimate changing glacier terminus and update glacier area changes between equilibrium line altitude (ELA) and the terminus. The improved scheme was used in the nested Urumqi Glacier No. 1 catchment and Urumqi River Basin in Tienshan Mountains, China. Comparison of the simulated and observed data suggested that the new scheme accurately reproduced the length and area changes of Glacier No. 1. The contributions of glacier melt and ice melt to runoff were estimated at 71% and 38% for Glacier No. 1 Hydrological Station and 11.1% and 5.8% for Yingxiongqiao Hydrological Station, respectively. This helped to better interpret long-term monitored glacio-hydrological processes of Glacier No. 1 and the variation of glacier melt contribution to streamflow at the catchment scale.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dinagarapandi Pandi ◽  
Saravanan Kothandaraman ◽  
K S Kasiviswanathan ◽  
Mohan Kuppusamy

Abstract Analyzing the Water Balance Components (WBCs) of catchment help in assessing the water resources for their sustainable management and development. This paper used Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model mainly to analyze the variation in the WBCs through the change in the Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) and meteorological variables. For this purpose, the model used the inputs of LULC and meteorological variables between the year 2001-2020 at five year and daily time interval respectively from the Chittar river catchment. The developed models were evaluated using SWAT-CUP split-up procedure (pre-calibration and post-calibration). The model was found to be good in calibration and validation, yielding the coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.94 and 0.81 respectively. Furthermore, WBCs of the catchment were estimated for the near future (2021 - 2030) at monthly and annual scale. For this endeavour, LULC was forecasted for the year 2021 and 2026 using Celluar Automata (CA)-ANN and for the same period meteorological variables were also forecasted using the smoothing moving average method from the historical data.


Author(s):  
Paweł Marcinkowski ◽  
Mikołaj Piniewski ◽  
Ignacy Kardel ◽  
Marek Giełczewski ◽  
Tomasz Okruszko

AbstractModelling of discharge, nitrate and phosphate loads from the Reda catchment to the Puck Lagoon using SWAT. This study presents an application of the SWAT model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) in an agricultural, coastal catchment situated in northern Poland, draining an area of 482 km2 (the Reda catchment). The main objective of this study was calibration and validation of the model against daily discharge and water quality parameters (bi-monthly total suspended solids [TSS], nitrate nitrogen [N-NO3] and phosphate phosphorus [P-PO4] loads). Calibration and validation were conducted using the SWAT-CUP program and SUFI-2 (Sequential Uncertainty Fitting Version 2) algorithm. The Nash- -Sutcliffe efficiency, which was set as an objective function in calibration of all variables, was equal for discharge to 0.75 and 0.61 for calibration and validation periods, respectively. For TSS, N-NO3 and P-PO4 loads NSE was equal to 0.56, 0.62 and 0.53 in calibration period, and 0.22, 0.64 and -1.78 in validation period, respectively. For the calibration period all the results are satisfactory or good, while for the validation period the results for TSS and P-PO4 loads are rather poor, which is related mainly to the lack of homogeneity between calibration and validation periods. These results demonstrate that SWAT is an appropriate tool for quantification of nutrient loads in Polish agricultural catchments, in particular for N-NO3. The model can therefore be applied for water resources management, for quantification of scenarios of climate and land use change, and for estimation of the Best Management Practices efficiency


2014 ◽  
Vol 1073-1076 ◽  
pp. 1751-1755
Author(s):  
Fang Ma ◽  
Xiao Feng Jiang ◽  
Li Wang ◽  
Dan Shan ◽  
Xiong Wei Liang ◽  
...  

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was examined for its applicability in modeling stream-flow and nutrients (total nitrogen, TN and total phosphorus, TP) in Ashi River Basin, China covering an area of 3545 km2. This model was calibrated by using the observed data of monthly flow during 1996-2005 and nutrients (TN and TP) during 2006-2008, and validated by using the observed data of monthly flow during 2006-2010 and water quality during 2009-2010. For stream-flow, the monthly results of RE, R2 and ENS values reached 6.42%, 0.61 and 0.59 respectively for calibration period, whereas these were-12.83%, 0.69 and 0.67, respectively for validation period; for TN calibration, values of RE, R2 and ENS were-18.33%, 0.64 and 0.55 respectively, and for validation period they were-17.34%, 0.68 and 0.57 respectively; for TP calibration, values of RE, R2 and ENS were-4.32%, 0.61 and 0.56 respectively, and for validation period they were-18.02%, 0.67 and 0.58 respectively. Results show that SWAT has applicability in modeling stream-flow and nutrients (TN and TP) in cold and flat area.


2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 1017-1024 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raj Cibin ◽  
Indrajeet Chaubey ◽  
Matthew J. Helmers ◽  
K. P. Sudheer ◽  
Michael J. White ◽  
...  

Abstract. Vegetative filter strips (VFS) are popular conservation practices installed at the edges of agricultural fields to reduce losses of pollutants from agricultural areas to receiving waterbodies. The recent interest in using VFS areas as multifunctional landscapes necessitates an improved depiction of VFS in simulation models. This study is aimed to enhance the physical representation of VFS in the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to improve the representation of ecohydrologic processes and land management practices in VFS areas. The proposed enhancement enables routing of water, sediment, and nutrients from the source area through the VFS area and makes the infiltrated water and nutrients available for filter crop uptake. The improvements are implemented in SWAT by modifying input files through Matlab scripts and by changing SWAT subroutines to enable routing. The model improvements are tested with three paired watershed studies with and without edge-of-field VFS in central Iowa. The improved model estimated 46% runoff reduction, 91% sediment reduction, 83% total phosphorus reduction, and 54% nitrate reduction with VFS, and these estimates closely matched the measured VFS reductions. The improved model was able to represent increased infiltration, soil moisture, and denitrification in the VFS area, along with accurately capturing crop yields in the source and VFS areas. Overall, the results indicate improved physical representation of VFS in SWAT. Keywords: Conservation measures, Flexible buffer strips, Multifunctional buffers, SWAT model, Vegetative filter strips.


2015 ◽  
Vol 713-715 ◽  
pp. 1894-1898
Author(s):  
Kai Xu ◽  
Hui Qing Peng ◽  
De Ge Ji Rifu ◽  
Rui Xin Zhang ◽  
Hao Xiao ◽  
...  

Soil erosion in a catchment has becoming a serious environmental issue for an increasing damage to the surface ecological environment. To quantitatively simulate the sediment yield, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was introduced in Tao River Basin. The investigation was conducted using a 8-year historical observed sediment data from 2001 to 2008. The performance evaluation shows that the simulated monthly sediment yield matched the observed data satisfactorily, with Re was less than 15%, R2 > 0.9 and Nash-suttclife (Ens)>0.8 for both calibration (2001-2004) and validation period (2005-2008) at two observed stations, indicating the validity of SWAT model for sediment yield simulation in the study area. The results of this study can be helpful for solving the soil erosion issue for water environmental protection.


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