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Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT)

SWAT is a public domain model actively supported by the USDA Agricultural Research Service at the Grassland, Soil and Water Research Laboratory in Temple, Texas, USA. http://www.brc.tamus.edu/swat/ SWAT is a river basin scale model developed to quantify the impact of land management practices in large, complex watersheds

Water Balance Equation

Precipitation = Evaporation + Transpiration + Runoff + Recharge + Storage


Evaporation is the direct evaporative loss of water from the ground to the atmosphere; Transpiration is the passage of water through the plants and its release into the atmosphere; Runoff is the net surface-movement of water out of the system; Recharge is the percolation of water through soil to the water table; and Storage denotes the amount of water stored in the soil profile.

SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) Model


Parameter
Surface Runoff/Initial losses/Infiltration Transmission Losses Evapotranspiration Channel Routing Mannings Coefficient Recharge

Method
SCS Curve Number

function of K,TT,P, and L Penman-Monteith Eq. Muskingum Routing Jarret Procedures Venetis & Sangrey

(1) Surface Runoff/Initial losses/Infiltration


Initial losses: losses before precipitation reaches the stream

Two popular methods: (1) SCS Curve Number Procedure (SCS, 1972) (2) Green & Ampt Infiltration Method (1911)

Initial losses
Surface storage (ponding)

Interception (by plants)

Infiltration prior to runoff

Curve Number (CN)


SCS Engineering Division, 1986 tested a list of soils with varying landuse, soil types and Antecedent Water Content (AWC). N.B.: Antecedent water content: previous water content Assigned CNs and provided a lookup table for these numbers all based on daily conditions.

SCS Curve Number


SCS Curve Number (CN)
Function of soil type, land use, and antecedent soil water conditions
(losses)

4 Hydrologic groups based on infiltration capability

Antecedent Soil Moisture Condition


Soil retains a degree of moisture after a rainfall event. This residual water moisture affects the soil's infiltration capacity. During the next rainfall event, the infiltration capacity will cause the soil to be saturated at a different rate. The higher the level of antecedent soil moisture, the more quickly the soil becomes saturated. Once the soil is saturated, runoff will occur.

Three types:
I dry (wilting point) II average (field capacity) III wet (oversaturated)

Hydrologic Groups
Groups that share similar runoff/infiltration potential
A = High Infiltration/Low Runoff (e.g. alluvial deposits) B = Moderate (e.g. sandstone) C = Slow/Low (e.g., massive Limestone) D = Very Low Infiltration/High Runoff (e.g., basement)

Distribution of Soil types (CNs)

Quaternary: 63 Nubian Sandstone: 77 Tertiary LS: 98 Precambrian: 98

Why not the Green and Ampt Method?


Too many assumptions that dont work for arid areas. Predict infiltration assuming excess water at the surface at all times Soil profile is homogenous and the antecedent moisture is uniformly distributed in the profile.

G & A Schematic

(2) Transmission Losses


Losses experienced in the stream

tloss
Tloss K ch TT P ch L ch

ch

* TT * P ch * L ch

= Transmission losses = Hydraulic Conductivity = Travel Time = Wetted perimeter of channel = Length of channel

Where
Hydraulic Conductivity (K):
A property of soil or rock, that describes the ease with which water can move through pore spaces or fractures. It depends on the intrinsic permeability of the material and on the degree of saturation.

Where
Wetted Perimeter Channel The perimeter of the cross sectional area in a channel that is "wet."

Thus

tloss K ch * TT * Pch * Lch


The larger the hydraulic conductivity,the greater the transmission losses. The larger the travel time, the greater the transmission losses. The larger the wetted perimeter, the greater the transmission losses. The longer the length of channel, the greater the transmission losses

(3) Evapotranspiration (ET)


A term used to describe the sum of evaporation and plant transpiration from the Earth's land surface to atmosphere
N.B.: Transpiration is the evaporation of water into the atmosphere from the leaves and stems of plants.

Evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration

Evaporation

Transpiration

Open Water

Soil

Vegetation Surfaces

Plants

Source: Ward and Trimble 2004

Factors controlling ET
Energy availability Approximately 600 calories of heat must be added to a gram of water for it to evaporate into the air. This energy is called "the latent heat of vaporization Wind speed A wind current moving across space is going to carry away newly evaporated water molecules, allowing more water to evaporate into that space. Wind speed causes disruption in the molecule bonds and helps to break up the water into smaller droplets, thus creating evaporation faster.

Vegetation The more the vegetation, the larger the transpiration Precipitation Evapo-transpiration is initiated by precipitation Moisture gradient Temperature (rising Temp increases gradient) Humidity (rising humidity decreases gradient)

Penman-Monteith Equation
Comprehensive expression: Combines components that account for energy needed to sustain evaporation, strength of the mechanism required to remove the water and aerodynamic and surface resistance terms. Assume minimal to no transpiration and canopy interception

Why not the Priestley-Taylor Method?


Simplified version of the combination equation for use when surface areas are wet. Aerodynamic component was removed and a fudge factor was added to the energy component.

Why not the Hargreaves Method?

Least accepted method Only accounts for the energy component

(4) Water Routing


SWAT deals with routing water in volumes of water Two Methods: (1) Variable Storage Method (2) Muskingum Routing Method

Channel Characteristics

Muskingum Routing Method


Accounts for flooding by modeling storage volume in a channel length as a combination of wedge and prism storages that can be expressed as bank storage

Manings Equation used throughout routing


Calculates open channel flow Introduced by the Irish Engineer Robert Manning in 1889. The Mannings equation is an empirical equation that applies to uniform flow in open channels and is a function of the channel velocity, flow area and channel slope. The larger the: (1) area, (2) hydraulic radius, (3) slope and the smaller the Manning Coefficient, the larger the flow rate

Use SWAT default value

Where: Q v A n R S Flow Rate, (ft3/s) Velocity, (ft/s) Flow Area, (ft2) Mannings Roughness Coefficient Hydraulic Radius, (ft) Channel Slope, (ft/ft)

Why not Variable Storage Routing Method (Williams, 1969)?

Does not accommodate flooding scenarios\ Does not have a bank storage/wedge storage component For a given reach segment, storage is based on the continuity equation.

Vin Vout Vstored

(5) Recharge - Venetis & Sangrey


Exponential decay weighting factor wrchrg,i = (1-exp[-1/gw])*wseep + exp[-1/ gw]*wrchrg,i-1 Where: wrchrg,i gw wseep wrchrg,i-1 = amount of recharge entering aquifer of a given day = delay time or drainage time of overlying aquifer = total amount of water exiting the bottom of the soil profile on a given day = amount of recharge entering aquifer on day i-1

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