Setting up ArcSWAT hydrological model for the Verlorenvlei catchment

[摘要] Agricultural production has become vital to the Sandveld, of which Verlorenvlei is a part, in termsof both economic growth and food security. It is well documented as an area under threat of severenatural resource depletion if it is not well managed with sustainability in mind. Agriculturalproduction, other human-driven development and the survival of the local ecosystems compete forthe limited water resources.This study uses the SWAT hydrological model to simulate the transport of water through thecatchment area. ArcSWAT, a third-party software extension to ArcGIS, is used as an interfacebetween ArcGIS and the SWAT model. Spatial data (DEM, soil and landuse) is used in the preprocessingphase and fed into the SWAT model through the interface.Daily climate data were sourced and prepared according to the SWAT model's input requirements.Considerable effort was required to fill temporal and spatial gaps in available climate data, and toinfer certain unmeasured climate variables from other measurements (e.g. infer solar radiation fromdaylight hours, time of the year and latitude).The SWAT hydrological model was then run. The model results compared favourably to measuredflow data. The study recommends building on from this first step using the SWAT hydrologicalmodel to simulate future land use scenarios for the catchment area.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University