Modeling Stream Flow Using SWAT Model in the Bina River Basin, India

Abstract

Understanding watershed runoff processes is critical for planning effective soil and water management practices and efficiently utilize available water resources. The main objective of this study was to investigate the performance of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to simulate streamflow from the Bina basin in the Madhya Pradesh state of India. The SWAT model was calibrated and validated on a daily and monthly basis using historical streamflow and weather data from the Bina basin. The Sequential Uncertainty Fitting (SUFI-2) technique in the SWAT Calibration and Uncertainty Procedures (SWAT-CUP) program was used to assess model uncertainties. The SWAT model performed “satisfactory” and “very good” in simulating streamflow at daily and monthly time steps, respectively. Model calibration results showed that coefficients of determination (R2) values were 0.66 and 0.96; while Nash-Sutcliffe (NSE) values were 0.65 and 0.94 for daily and monthly simulations, respectively. The R2 values of daily and monthly simulations during model validation were 0.65 and 0.72, respectively while the respective NSE values were 0.58 and 0.72. This study demonstrated that the SWAT model could be effectively used to simulate streamflow in the Bina river basin.