H. Ahmadzadeh; saeed morid; M. Delavar
Abstract
Streamflows, actual evapotranspiration and crops’ yield are the main variables to estimate agricultural water productivity. Thus, simulation of these variables is of great importance in evaluation of different measures to increase water productivity. For this, application of conceptual models is a ...
Read More
Streamflows, actual evapotranspiration and crops’ yield are the main variables to estimate agricultural water productivity. Thus, simulation of these variables is of great importance in evaluation of different measures to increase water productivity. For this, application of conceptual models is a relevant approach and SWAT (soil and water assessment tool) is one of the well known models in this regard. The present paper aims to assess SWAT in simultaneous simulation of streamflows, actual evapotranspiration and the main crops’ yield of the Zarineh Rud basin. The reason for selection of this basin as the study area relates to its role to meet the Urmia Lake’s water requirement. The lake faces with serious water shortage in recent years and escalating water inflow depend to increase water productivity in the upper catchments. To setup SWAT, the basin was divided to 11 subbasins and 908 hydrological response units, which enables us to introduce more accurately the basin’s cropping pattern and water resources, which meet the requirements of the agricultural area. For simulation of the river flows, data from 6 gauging stations were used for calibration and validation of the model for periods of 1987 to 1999 and 2000 to 2006 respectively that resulted R2 and RMSE between 0.49 to 0.71 and 3.9 to 44.9 (m3/sec) for calibration period, and values of 0.54 to 0.77 and 2.07 to 55.7(m3/sec) for validation period respectively. There is no observed data for actual evapotranspiration in the basin. So, it was verified in the wet years by maximum evapotranspiration reported in National Water Document that results presented the values of 0.97 and 52.5(mm/year) for R2and RMSE respectively. Finally, the estimated yields of the 7 staple crops by the model were compared with the recorded data that showed very close values(R2=0.9 and RMSE=1.65(ton/ha)).
