Using SWAT for Strategic Planning of Basin Scale Irrigation Control Policies: a Case Study from a Humid Region in Northern Germany

Maier, Nadine; Dietrich, Jörg

doi:10.1007/s11269-016-1348-0

Cited by 29 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Insufficient water supply for agricultural production, drinking water supply, and environmental flows have raised concerns on the local economy and ecosystem integrity (Hillman et al, 2012). Due to the significant impacts on soil moisture and plant growth, the amount and timing of irrigation influence ET losses and watershed hydrology (Maier and Dietrich, 2016). As a result, the irrigation impacts on streamflow should be evaluated to provide reliable estimates of streamflow in basins like the YRB, which helps balance the water supplies and demands for effective water resource management.…”

Section: Impacts Of Irrigation On Water Cyclingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…SWAT simulates water withdrawal for irrigation from different water sources (e.g., reservoirs, streams, and groundwater aquifers). Multiple efforts have employed SWAT to evaluate impacts of different irrigation practices on watershed hydrology (Ahmadzadeh et al, 2016;Chen et al, 2017;Maier and Dietrich, 2016) and emphasized the importance of balancing water supply and irrigation demands in hydrologic simula-tions. However, applicability of SWAT in watersheds with interacting reservoir operations and irrigation has not been well studied and thus deserves further investigation to inform effective water resource management.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Implications of water management representations for watershed hydrologic modeling in the Yakima River basin

Qiu

Yang

Huang

et al. 2019

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Water management substantially alters natural regimes of streamflow through modifying retention time and water exchanges among different components of the terrestrial water cycle. Accurate simulation of water cycling in intensively managed watersheds, such as the Yakima River basin (YRB) in the Pacific Northwest of the US, faces challenges in reliably characterizing influences of management practices (e.g., reservoir operation and cropland irrigation) on the watershed hydrology. Using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, we evaluated streamflow simulations in the YRB based on different reservoir operation and irrigation schemes. Simulated streamflow with the reservoir operation scheme optimized by the RiverWare model better reproduced measured streamflow than the simulation using the default SWAT reservoir operation scheme. Scenarios with irrigation practices demonstrated higher water losses through evapotranspiration (ET) and matched benchmark data better than the scenario that only considered reservoir operations. Results of this study highlight the importance of reliably representing reservoir operations and irrigation management for credible modeling of watershed hydrology. The methods and findings presented here hold promise to enhance water resources assessment that can be applied to other intensively managed watersheds.

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Section: Impacts Of Irrigation On Water Cyclingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implications of water management representations for watershed hydrologic modeling in the Yakima River basin

Qiu

Yang

Huang

et al. 2019

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…Firstly, the applicability of a hydrological model is an important guarantee in these studies. In our study, the SWAT model, which was mostly used in small and medium-sized catchments [48,49], was applied to a large basin with an area of 556,800 km 2 . The model parameters are physically based and estimated from spatial databases.…”

Section: Limitation Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources in the Songhua River Basin

Zhang

2016

Water

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Abstract:The Songhua River Basin (SRB) in Northeast China is one of the areas most sensitive to global climate change because of its high-latitude location. In this study, we conducted a modeling assessment on the potential change of water resources in this region for the coming three decades using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). First, we calibrated and validated the model with historical streamflow records in this basin. Then, we applied the calibrated model for the period from 2020 to 2049 with the projected and downscaled climatic data under two emission scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5). The study results show: (1) The SWAT model performed very well for both the calibration and validation periods in the SRB; (2) The projected temperatures showed a steady, significant increase across the SRB under both scenarios, especially in two sub-basins, the Nenjiang River Basin (NRB) and the Lower SRB (LSRB). With regard to precipitation, both scenarios showed a decreasing trend in the NRB and LSRB but an increasing trend in the Upper Songhua River Basin (USRB); and (3), generally, the hydrologic modeling suggested a decreasing trend of streamflow for 2020-2049. Compared to baseline conditions , the streamflow in the NRB and LSRB would decrease by 20.3%-37.8%, while streamflow in the USRB would experience an increase of 9.68%-17.7%. These findings provide relevant insights into future surface water resources, and such information can be helpful for resource managers and policymakers to develop effective eco-environment management plans and strategies in the face of climate change.

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“…Spatially distributed hydrological models, such as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) (Arnold et al, 1998), which embody our current understanding of catchment behavior, can be used for this purpose. These models are increasingly used to inform management decisions (e.g., land use change) in irrigated catchments to optimize potentially competing objectives such as maximizing irrigation efficiency, the needs of groundwater dependent ecosystems (such as wetland/riparian zones) and managing salinity (Cau & Paniconi, 2007;Emam et al, 2015;Faramarzi et al, 2010;Githui et al, 2012;Maier & Dietrich, 2016;Sun & Ren, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Importance of Spatiotemporal Variability in Irrigation Inputs for Hydrological Modeling of Irrigated Catchments

McInerney

Thyer

Kavetski

et al. 2018

Water Resources Research

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Irrigation contributes substantially to the water balance and environmental condition of many agriculturally productive catchments. This study focuses on the representation of spatiotemporal variability of irrigation depths in irrigation schedule models. Irrigation variability arises due to differences in farmers’ irrigation practices, yet its effects on distributed hydrological predictions used to inform management decisions are currently poorly understood. Using a case study of the Barr Creek catchment in the Murray Darling Basin, Australia, we systematically compare four irrigation schedule models, including uniform versus variable in space, and continuous‐time versus event‐based representations. We evaluate simulated irrigation at hydrological response unit and catchment scales, and demonstrate the impact of irrigation schedules on the simulations of streamflow, evapotranspiration, and potential recharge obtained using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). A new spatially variable event‐based irrigation schedule model is developed. When used to provide irrigation inputs to SWAT, this new model: (i) reduces the over‐estimation of actual evapotranspiration that occurs with spatially uniform continuous‐time irrigation assumptions (biases reduced from ~40% to ~2%) and (ii) better reproduces the fast streamflow response to rainfall events compared to spatially uniform event‐based irrigation assumptions (seasonally adjusted Nash‐Sutcliffe Efficiency improves from 0.15 to 0.56). The stochastic nature of the new model allows representing irrigation schedule uncertainty, which improves the characterization of uncertainty in simulated catchment streamflow and can be used for uncertainty decomposition. More generally, this study highlights the importance of spatiotemporal variability of inputs to distributed hydrological models and the importance of using multivariate response data to test and refine environmental models.

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Using SWAT for Strategic Planning of Basin Scale Irrigation Control Policies: a Case Study from a Humid Region in Northern Germany

Cited by 29 publications

References 18 publications

Implications of water management representations for watershed hydrologic modeling in the Yakima River basin

Implications of water management representations for watershed hydrologic modeling in the Yakima River basin

Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources in the Songhua River Basin

The Importance of Spatiotemporal Variability in Irrigation Inputs for Hydrological Modeling of Irrigated Catchments

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