ALBERT

Description: A computer program (ESWAT) was developed to perform integrated water quality modelling for river basins in order to assist water quality management planning and decision-making. To describe the variabilities in water quality due to the climate, seasonalities and sub-daily fluctuations, such a model should be able to generate long-time output series on a sub-daily basis. This is established by extending the existing program codes of SWAT. While SWAT enables long-time simulations of agricultural pollution on a daily time step, ESWAT uses a time step of a user-defined fraction of an hour and an hourly time step to calculate the rainfall/runoff and the in-stream river routing processes, respectively. The hydrology part was further improved by including a convolution module and modifications of the evapotranspiration module of SWAT. A new module based on the QUAL2E concept was included to simulate the in-stream water quality processes. Also, an autocalibration module has been incorporated for the optimization of the process parameters. The method is based on a new approach for multi-objective calibration and incorporates the shuffled complex evolution (SCE) alogrithm. The optimization uses a global optimization criterion, whereby several output variables can be taken into account simultaneously. A new statistical method enables the aggregation of the objective functions for individual variables, hereby avoiding the weighting problem. ESWAT is applied on the Dender basin and the Wister Lake basin in Oklahoma, USA. These basins have different characteristics regarding pollution sources, hydrometeorology and scale, and thus provide a wide evaluation of the performance of ESWAT. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Description: This paper evaluates the impact of climate change on sediment yield in the Nam Ou basin located in northern Laos. Future climate (temperature and precipitation) from four general circulation models (GCMs) that are found to perform well in the Mekong region and a regional circulation model (PRECIS) are downscaled using a delta change approach. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used to assess future changes in sediment flux attributable to climate change. Results indicate up to 3.0 °C shift in seasonal temperature and 27% (decrease) to 41% (increase) in seasonal precipitation. The largest increase in temperature is observed in the dry season while the largest change in precipitation is observed in the wet season. In general, temperature shows increasing trends but changes in precipitation are not unidirectional and vary depending on the greenhouse gas emission scenarios (GHGES), climate models, prediction period and season. The simulation results show that the changes in annual stream discharges are likely to range from a 17% decrease to 66% increase in the future, which will lead to predicted changes in annual sediment yield ranging from a 27% decrease to about 160% increase. Changes in intra-annual (monthly) discharge as well as sediment yield are even greater (−62 to 105% in discharge and −88 to 243% in sediment yield). A higher discharge and sediment flux are expected during the wet seasons, although the highest relative changes are observed during the dry months. The results indicate high uncertainties in the direction and magnitude of changes of discharge as well as sediment yields due to climate change. As the projected climate change impact on sediment varies remarkably between the different climate models, the uncertainty should be taken into account in both sediment management and climate change adaptation.

Description: Soil erosion/sedimentation is an immense problem that has threatened water resources development in the Nile river basin, particularly in the Eastern Nile (Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt). An insight into soil erosion/sedimentation mechanisms and mitigation methods plays an imperative role for the sustainable water resources development in the region. This paper presents daily sediment yield simulations in the Upper Blue Nile under different Best Management Practice (BMP) scenarios. Scenarios applied in this paper are (i) maintaining existing conditions, (ii) introducing filter strips, (iii) applying stone bunds (parallel terraces), and (iv) reforestation. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to model soil erosion, identify soil erosion prone areas and assess the impact of BMPs on sediment reduction. For the existing conditions scenario, the model results showed a satisfactory agreement between daily observed and simulated sediment concentrations as indicated by Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency greater than 0.83. The simulation results showed that applying filter strips, stone bunds and reforestation scenarios reduced the current sediment yields both at the subbasins and the basin outlets. However, a precise interpretation of the quantitative results may not be appropriate because some physical processes are not well represented in the SWAT model.

Description: At present, new technologies are becoming available to extend the coverage of conventional meteorological datasets. An example is the TMPA-3B42R dataset (research – v6). The usefulness of this satellite rainfall product has been investigated in the hydrological modeling of the Vinces River catchment (Ecuadorian lowlands). The initial TMPA-3B42R information exhibited some features of the precipitation spatial pattern (e.g., decreasing southwards and westwards). It showed a remarkable bias compared to the ground-based rainfall values. Several time scales (annual, seasonal, monthly, etc.) were considered for bias correction. High correlations between the TMPA-3B42R and the rain gauge data were still found for the monthly resolution, and accordingly a bias correction at that level was performed. Bias correction factors were calculated, and, adopting a simple procedure, they were spatially distributed to enhance the satellite data. By means of rain gauge hyetographs, the bias-corrected monthly TMPA-3B42R data were disaggregated to daily resolution. These synthetic time series were inserted in a hydrological model to complement the available rain gauge data to assess the model performance. The results were quite comparable with those using only the rain gauge data. Although the model outcomes did not improve remarkably, the contribution of this experimental methodology was that, despite a high bias, the satellite rainfall data could still be corrected for use in rainfall-runoff modeling at catchment and daily level. In absence of rain gauge data, the approach may have the potential to provide useful data at scales larger than the present modeling resolution (e.g., monthly/basin).

Description: The present paper investigated the extent of the flood propagation in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta under different projected flood hydrographs, considering the 2000 flood event (the 20-yr return period event, T. V. H. Le et al., 2007) as the basis for computation. The analysis herein was done to demonstrate the particular complexity of the flood dynamics, which was simulated by the 1-D modelling system ISIS used by the Mekong River Commission. The floods of the year 2050 are simulated using a projected sea level rise of +30 cm. The future flood hydrograph changes at Kratie, Cambodia, were also applied for the upstream boundary condition by using an adjusted regional climate model. Two future flood hydrographs were applied at the upstream part of the delta, the first one in a scenario of climate change without considering developments in the Mekong Basin,and the second one in a scenario of climate change taking into account future development of the delta. Analyses were done to identify the areas sensitive to floods, considering the uncertainty of the projection of both the upstream and downstream boundary conditions. In addition, due to the rice-dominated culture in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, possible impacts of floods on the rice-based farming systems were also analysed.

Description: The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is an integrated river basin model that is widely applied within the Nile basin. Up to date, more than 20 peer-reviewed papers describe the use of SWAT for a variety of problems in the upper Nile basin countries, such as erosion modelling, land use and climate change impact modelling and water resources management. The majority of the studies are focused on locations in the tropical highlands in Ethiopia and around Lake Victoria. The popularity of SWAT is attributed to the fact that the tool is freely available and that it is readily applicable through the development of geographic information system (GIS) based interfaces and its easy linkage to sensitivity, calibration and uncertainty analysis tools. The online and free availability of basic GIS data that are required for SWAT made its applicability more straightforward even in data-scarce areas. However, the easy use of SWAT may not always lead to appropriate models which is also a consequence of the quality of the available free databases in these regions. In this paper, we aim at critically reviewing the use of SWAT in the context of the modelling purpose and problem descriptions in the tropical highlands of the Nile basin countries. To evaluate the models that are described in journal papers, a number of criteria are used to evaluate the model set-up, model performances, physical representation of the model parameters, and the correctness of the hydrological model balance. On the basis of performance indicators, the majority of the SWAT models were classified as giving satisfactory to very good results. Nevertheless, the hydrological mass balances as reported in several papers contained losses that might not be justified. Several papers also reported the use of unrealistic parameter values. More worrying is that many papers lack this information. For this reason, most of the reported SWAT models have to be evaluated critically. An important gap is the lack of attention that is given to the vegetation and crop processes. None of the papers reported any adaptation to the crop parameters, or any crop-related output such as leaf area index, biomass or crop yields. A proper simulation of the land cover is important for obtaining correct runoff generation, evapotranspiration and erosion computations. It is also found that a comparison of SWAT applications on the same or similar case study but by different research teams and/or model versions resulted in very different results. It is therefore recommended to find better methods to evaluate the representativeness of the distributed processes and parameters (especially when land use studies are envisaged) or predictions of the future through environmental changes. The main recommendation is that more details on the model set-up, the parameters and outputs should be provided in the journal papers or supplementary materials in order to allow for a more stringent evaluation of these models.

Description: The present paper investigated what would be the flood propagation in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD), due to different projected climate change scenarios, if the 2000 flood event (the most recent highest flood in the history) was taken as a base for computation. The analysis herein was done to demonstrate the particular complexity of the flood dynamics. The future floods, on short term horizon, year 2050, were studied by considering the projected sea level rise (SLR) (+30 cm). At the same time, future flood hydrograph changes at Kratie, Cambodia were applied for the upstream boundary condition. In this study, the future flood hydrograph was separated into two scenarios in which: (i) Scenario 1 was projected in 2050 according to the adjusted regional climate model without any development in the Upper Mekong Basin; and, (ii) Scenario 2 was projected as in Scenario 1 but with the development of the Upper Mekong Basin after 2030. Analyses were done to identify the high sensitive areas in terms of flood conditions (i.e. with and without flood) according to the uncertainty of the projection of both the upstream and downstream boundary conditions. In addition, due to the rice-dominated culture in the VMD, possible impacts of flood on the rice-based farming systems were analysed.

Description: The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is a hydrological simulation tool that is widely applied within the Nile basin. Up to date, more than 20 peer reviewed papers describe the use of SWAT for a variety of problems in the upper Nile basin countries, such as erosion modeling, land use modeling, climate change impact modeling and water resources management. The majority of the studies are clustered in the tropical highlands in Ethiopia and around Lake Victoria. The popularity of SWAT is attributed to the fact that the tool is freely available and that it is readily applicable through the development of Geographic Information System (GIS) based interfaces and its easy linkage to sensitivity, calibration and uncertainty analysis tools. The online and free availability of basic GIS data that are required for SWAT made its applicability more straight forward even in data scarce areas. However, the easy use of SWAT may not always lead to knowledgeable models. In this paper, we aim at critically reviewing the use of SWAT in the context of the modeling purpose and problem descriptions in the tropical highlands of the Nile Basin countries. A number of criteria are used to evaluate the model set-up, model performances, physical representation of the model parameters, and the correctness of the hydrological model balance. On the basis of performance indicators, the majority of the SWAT models were classified as giving satisfactory to very good results. Nevertheless, the hydrological mass balances as reported in several papers contained losses that might not be justified. Several papers also reported unrealistic parameter values. More worrying is that many papers lack this information. For this reason, it is difficult to give an overall positive evaluation to most of the reported SWAT models. An important gap is the lack of attention that is given to the vegetation and crop processes. None of the papers reported any adaptation to the crop parameters, or any crop related output such as leaf area index, biomass or crop yields. A proper simulation of the land cover is important for obtaining correct runoff generation, evapotranspiration and erosion computations. It is also found that a comparison of SWAT applications on the same or similar case study but by different research teams and/or model versions resulted in very different results. It is therefore recommended to try to find better methods to evaluate the representativeness of the distributed processes and parameters, especially when land use studies are envisaged or predictions of the future through environmental changes. The main recommendation is that more details on the model set-up, the parameters and outputs should be provided in the journal papers or supplementary materials in order to allow for a more stringent evaluation of these models.