Improving the spatial representation of soil properties and hydrology using topographically derived initialization processes in the SWAT model

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dc.contributor.authorFuka, Daniel R.en
dc.contributor.authorCollick, Amy S.en
dc.contributor.authorKleinman, Peter J. A.en
dc.contributor.authorAuerbach, Daniel A.en
dc.contributor.authorHarmel, R. Darenen
dc.contributor.authorEaston, Zachary M.en
dc.contributor.departmentBiological Systems Engineeringen
dc.date.accessioned2020-04-20T13:13:04Zen
dc.date.available2020-04-20T13:13:04Zen
dc.date.issued2016-11-29en
dc.description.abstractTopography exerts critical controls on many hydrologic, geomorphologic and biophysical processes. However, many watershed modelling systems use topographic data only to define basin boundaries and stream channels, neglecting opportunities to account for topographic controls on processes such as soil genesis, soil moisture distributions and hydrological response. Here, we demonstrate a method that uses topographic data to adjust spatial soil morphologic and hydrologic attributes: texture, depth to the C-horizon, saturated conductivity, bulk density, porosity and the water capacities at field (33 kpa) and wilting point (1500 kpa) tensions. As a proof of concept and initial performance test, the values of the topographically adjusted soil parameters and those from the Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO; available at 1 : 20 000 scale) were compared with measured soil pedon pit data in the Grasslands Soil and Water Research Lab watershed in Riesel, TX. The topographically adjusted soils were better correlated with the pit measurements than were the SSURGO values. We then incorporated the topographically adjusted soils into an initialization of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool model for 15 Riesel research watersheds to investigate how changes in soil properties influence modelled hydrological responses at the field scale. The results showed that the topographically adjusted soils produced better runoff predictions in 50% of the fields, with the SSURGO soils performing better in the remainder. In addition, the a priori adjusted soils result in fewer calibrated model parameters. These results indicate that adjusting soil properties based on topography can result in more accurate soil characterization and, in some cases, improve model performance. Copyright (C) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.en
dc.description.adminPublic domain – authored by a U.S. government employeeen
dc.description.notesWe would like to acknowledge the funding support from NSF [award no. 1343802, EarthCube Building Blocks: A Broker Framework for Next Generation Geoscience (BCube)], USDA NRCS Conservation Innovation Grants Program (award no. 69-3A75-13-232), a NatureNet postdoctoral fellowship from The Nature Conservancy, and computational support from National Center for Atmospheric Research (Computational and Information Systems Laboratory. 2015. Yellowstone: IBM iDataPlex System (NCAR Community Computing). Boulder, CO: National Center for Atmospheric Research. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7wd3xhc).en
dc.description.sponsorshipNSFNational Science Foundation (NSF) [1343802]; USDA NRCS Conservation Innovation Grants Program [69-3A75-13-232]; NatureNet postdoctoral fellowship from The Nature Conservancyen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.10899en
dc.identifier.eissn1099-1085en
dc.identifier.issn0885-6087en
dc.identifier.issue24en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/97833en
dc.identifier.volume30en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.rightsCC0 1.0 Universalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/en
dc.subjectSWAT modelen
dc.subjectinfiltration excess runoffen
dc.subjectsoil characteristicsen
dc.subjecttopographyen
dc.subjectsurface characterizationen
dc.subjectHortonian runoffen
dc.subjectnon-point sourceen
dc.titleImproving the spatial representation of soil properties and hydrology using topographically derived initialization processes in the SWAT modelen
dc.title.serialHydrological Processesen
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten
dc.type.dcmitypeStillImageen

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