| Title: | Transferability of SWAT Models between SWAT2009 and SWAT2012 |
| Authors: | Seo, M., H. Yen, M.-K. Kim and J. Jeong |
| Year: | 2014 |
| Journal: | Journal of Environmental Quality |
| Volume (Issue): | 43(3) |
| Pages: | 869–880 |
| Article ID: | |
| DOI: | 10.2134/jeq2013.11.0450 |
| URL (non-DOI journals): | |
| Model: | SWAT |
| Broad Application Category: | hydrologic and pollutant |
| Primary Application Category: | model and/or data comparison |
| Secondary Application Category: | calibration, sensitivity, and/or uncertainty analysis |
| Watershed Description: | 1,692 km^2 Arroyo-Colorado, located in the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, U.S. |
| Calibration Summary: | |
| Validation Summary: | |
| General Comments: | |
| Abstract: | In recent years, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) has experienced upgrades with enhanced functionalities and modeling capacities as it gets to the current version, SWAT2012. Changes in the SWAT code on a specific process may result in propagating influences in the output of other related processes. In this study, the characteristic significance of the enhancements in SWAT code was investigated using the two recent versions, SWAT2009 and SWAT2012. Using a global optimization technique, each model was calibrated for flow, sediment, and nutrient, and then tested for transferability of parameters between the models. Results indicate that flow and water quality output were well calibrated with both models. However, the calibrated parameters determined by SWAT2009 and SWAT2012 were noticeably different, due mostly to the enhancements made in SWAT2012. Our result indicates that only the stream flow result was reliable when the models were upgraded of downgraded between the two versions after calibration. Sediment prediction was marginally reliable. SWAT parameters were non-transferrable if nutrient was the main output. The reasons for the differences can be explained by various reasons such as disparities in algorithms at the process-level and propagation of the resulting uncertainty into higher order processes. |
| Language: | English |
| Keywords: | SWAT2009; SWAT2012; DDS; Differences in processes; Interrelation among processes |