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Different Infiltration Methods for Swat Model Seasonal Calibration of Flow and Sediment Production

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Abstract

Hydrosedimentological models make it possible to better understand the dynamics of water and sediment production in watersheds when properly calibrated. The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of the curve number (CN) and Green and Ampt (GA) methods and of seasonal calibration of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model for estimating flow and sediment production in an agricultural basin. In this research, we presented an original application with the hourly suspended sediment concentration (SSC) generated by artificial neural networks (ANNs) for use in SWAT model calibration. This method was applied in the Taboão basin (77.5 km2), with data from 2008 to 2018. The best Nash–Sutcliffe (NS) coefficient values were obtained using the combination of wet years for calibration and the GA method for both daily flow (NScalibration: 0.74; and NSvalidation: 0.68) and daily sediment production (NScalibration: 0.83; and NSvalidation: 0.77). The CN method did not result in satisfactory values during daily flow calibration (NScalibration 0.39). The results showed that it is possible to employ the SWAT model for hydrosedimentological prediction in the Taboão basin, with a favorable efficiency, using the GA method and calibration with data for wet periods.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Hydraulic Research, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Bento Gonçalves, 9500, CEP: 91501-970, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

    Priscila Pacheco Mariani, Nilza Maria dos Reis Castro & Olavo Correa Pedrollo

  2. Federal University of Santa Maria, Av. Roraima, 1000, CEP:97105-900, Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

    Vanessa Sari & Taís Carine Schmitt

Authors
  1. Priscila Pacheco Mariani
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  2. Nilza Maria dos Reis Castro
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  3. Vanessa Sari
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  4. Taís Carine Schmitt
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  5. Olavo Correa Pedrollo
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Priscila Pacheco Mariani, Nilza Maria dos Reis Castro, Vanessa Sari, Taís Carine Schmitt and Olavo Correa Pedrollo. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Priscila Pacheco Mariani, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All the authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Mariani, P.P., dos Reis Castro, N.M., Sari, V. et al. Different Infiltration Methods for Swat Model Seasonal Calibration of Flow and Sediment Production. Water Resour Manage 38, 303–322 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-023-03671-1

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