SWAT Literature Database for Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Title:Incorporation of the equilibrium temperature approach in a Soil and Water Assessment Tool hydroclimatological stream temperature model 
Authors:Du, X., N.K. Shrestha, D.L. Ficklin and J. Wang 
Year:2018 
Journal:Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 
Volume (Issue):22(4) 
Pages:2343-2357 
Article ID: 
DOI:10.5194/hess-22-2343-2018 
URL (non-DOI journals): 
Model:SWAT 
Broad Application Category:hydrologic and pollutant 
Primary Application Category:stream and/or soil temperature assessment 
Secondary Application Category:nitrogen cycling/loss and transport 
Watershed Description:159,000 km^2 Athabasca River, which originates in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta (Canada) and travels northeast across Alberta, covering about 24 % of Alberta’s landmass. The ARB includes the urban centers of Jasper, Hinton, Whitecourt, Athabasca and Fort McMurray before draining into Lake Athabasca. Forest is the dominating land cover, accounting for about 82 % of the whole basin area, and agricultural land (9.5 %) is the second most dominant. Major activities in the basin include forestry, agriculture, tourism, pulp mills, coal mining, traditional oil and gas extraction and oil sands mining. Within the ARB, fish species can be broadly grouped into two primary types: those tolerant of cold waters and those which require relatively warmer water temperatures. The main fish species include walleye, lake whitefish, northern pike and burbot. 
Calibration Summary: 
Validation Summary: 
General Comments: 
Abstract:Stream temperature is an important indicator for biodiversity and sustainability in aquatic ecosystems. The stream temperature model currently in the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) only considers the impact of air temperature on stream temperature, while the hydroclimatological stream temperature model developed within the SWAT model considers hydrology and the impact of air temperature in simulating the water–air heat transfer process. In this study, we modified the hydroclimatological model by including the equilibrium temperature approach to model heat transfer processes at the water–air interface, which reflects the influences of air temperature, solar radiation, wind speed and streamflow conditions on the heat transfer process. The thermal capacity of the streamflow is modeled by the variation of the stream water depth. An advantage of this equilibrium temperature model is the simple parameterization, with only two parameters added to model the heat transfer processes. The equilibrium temperature model proposed in this study is applied and tested in the Athabasca River basin (ARB) in Alberta, Canada. The model is calibrated and validated at five stations throughout different parts of the ARB, where close to monthly samplings of stream temperatures are available. The results indicate that the equilibrium temperature model proposed in this study provided better and more consistent performances for the different regions of the ARB with the values of the Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency coefficient (NSE) greater than those of the original SWAT model and the hydroclimatological model. To test the model performance for different hydrological and environmental conditions, the equilibrium temperature model was also applied to the North Fork Tolt River Watershed in Washington, United States. The results indicate a reasonable simulation of stream temperature using the model proposed in this study, with minimum relative error values compared to the other two models. However, the NSE values were lower than those of the hydroclimatological model, indicating that more model verification needs to be done. The equilibrium temperature model uses existing SWAT meteorological data as input, can be calibrated using fewer parameters and less effort and has an overall better performance in stream temperature simulation. Thus, it can be used as an effective tool for predicting the changes in stream temperature regimes under varying hydrological and meteorological conditions. In addition, the impact of the stream temperature simulations on chemical reaction rates and concentrations was tested. The results indicate that the improved performance of the stream temperature simulation could significantly affect chemical reaction rates and the simulated concentrations, and the equilibrium temperature model could be a potential tool to model stream temperature in water quality simulations. 
Language:English 
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