Title: | Assessing the uncertainty of multiple input datasets in the prediction of water resource components |
Authors: | Kamali, B., K.C. Abbaspour and H. Yang |
Year: | 2017 |
Journal: | Water |
Volume (Issue): | 9(9) |
Pages: | |
Article ID: | 709 |
DOI: | 10.3390/w9090709 |
URL (non-DOI journals): | |
Model: | SWAT |
Broad Application Category: | hydrologic only |
Primary Application Category: | uncertainty analysis |
Secondary Application Category: | hydrologic assessment |
Watershed Description: | 50,800 km^2 Karhkeh River, located in northwest Iran. |
Calibration Summary: | |
Validation Summary: | |
General Comments: | |
Abstract: | A large number of local and global databases for soil, land use, crops, and climate are
now available from different sources, which often differ, even when addressing the same spatial
and temporal resolutions. As the correct database is unknown, their impact on estimating water
resource components (WRC) has mostly been ignored. Here, we study the uncertainty stemming
from the use of multiple databases and their impacts on WRC estimates such as blue water and soil
water for the Karkheh River Basin (KRB) in Iran. Four climate databases and two land use maps
were used to build multiple configurations of the KRB model using the soil and water assessment
tool (SWAT), which were similarly calibrated against monthly river discharges. We classified the
configurations based on their calibration performances and estimated WRC for each one. The results
showed significant differences in WRC estimates, even in models of the same class i.e., with similar
performance after calibration. We concluded that a non-negligible level of uncertainty stems from the
availability of different sources of input data. As the use of any one database among several produces
questionable outputs, it is prudent for modelers to pay more attention to the selection of input data. |
Language: | English |
Keywords: | input data uncertainty; multiple data sets; calibration; modeling; SWAT; SUFI-2 |