Journal of Range and Watershed Managment

Defining spatially continuous Hydrological Response Units for hydrological modelling in a mountainous watershed with SWAT (case study: Taleghan watershed)

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Marziyeh Haji Mohammadi 1
Aliakbar Nazari Samani 2
Arash Zare Garizi 3
Hamidreza Keshtkar 4
Mahmood Arabkhedri 5
Amir Sadoddin 6

1 PhD candidate in watershed Management sciences and engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.

2 Associate Professor, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.

3 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Rangeland and Watershed Management, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran.

4 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.

5 Professor, Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Research Institute, Tehran, Iran.

6 Associate Professor, Faculty of Rangeland and Watershed Management, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.22059/jrwm.2022.346096.1672
Abstract
The SWAT model is widely used to simulate watersheds and evaluate the impact of conservation watershed management practices. In this model, the simulation of the watershed processes is based on hydrological response units (HRUs) which are created by overlaying land use /land cover, soil and slope maps. Meanwhile, in the HRUs definition steps, these units become conceptual and lose their spatial location and continuously. This approach is a useful and often inevitable way to simulate large and heterogeneous watersheds in terms of computational efficiency. However, if the aim is spatializing and evaluating the effectiveness of management methods on runoff, sediment and other pollutants in medium to small basins, it is necessary to know the exact location of HRUs. The purpose of conducting this study was present a new approach to defining spatial and independent HRUs and compare the simulation results based on this method with the standard form of the model. In the new approach, independent and spatial HRUs are defined through pre-processing procedures in GIS and uniquely named soil units. The model results of both approaches were very similar and no significant difference was observed in the model outputs in Taleghan watershed. The Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of the simulated runoff and sediment at the outlet with the standard approach was 0.75 and 0.64, respectively. While, it was obtained 0.74 and 0.61, respectively for the new approach. The definition of spatial HRUs by applying the proposed method provides more tangible and practical outputs, which is more beneficial for identifying the critical areas as well as locating conservation practices compared to the conceptual HRUs approach.

Keywords

Taleghan watershed
SWAT hydrological model
hydrological response units
management practices
independent HRUs
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Journal of Range and Watershed Managment
Volume 75, Issue 2
Summer 2022
Pages 213-226

  • Receive Date 20 June 2022
  • Revise Date 13 August 2022
  • Accept Date 25 August 2022
  • Publish Date 06 September 2022

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