Author(s): Evgenia Koltsida; Andreas Kallioras

Linked Author(s):

Keywords: SWAT; Experimental catchment; Hourly simulation; Hydrological modeling

Abstract: Hydrological models have been widely used to comprehend the complex hydrological processes of a watershed. The SWAT hydrological model was applied in this study to estimate the major water balance components of an experimental sub-basin located in Athens, Greece. Two models were performed using daily and hourly rainfall observations. The models were calibrated for 2018 and validated for 2019 using streamflow data from a gauging station at the outlet of the sub-basin with the SUFI-2 algorithm in the SWAT-CUP program. The sensitivity analysis was conducted using 18 parameters. The results showed that the most sensitive parameters for the daily model were related to groundwater flow and for the hourly model were related to channel routing. The daily model showed satisfactory performance for both calibration and validation periods and generally captured better the patterns and the trend of the observed values than the hourly model. The water balance results indicated that the total water yield of the hourly model was higher than the total water yield of the daily model. Actual evapotranspiration contributed a large amount of water loss from the sub-basin, about 60% for the daily model and 53% for the hourly model. The simulated water balance components provide knowledge to understand the watershed characteristics. Overall, the satisfactory results of this study indicate the predictive ability of the SWAT model and suggest its appropriateness to predict water balance components to support water management policies and decision making.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3850/IAHR-39WC252171192022782

Year: 2022