Integrating water use systems and soil and water conservation measures into a hydrological model of an Iranian Wadi system

Water resources are precious in arid and semi-arid areas such as the Wadis of Iran. To sustainably manage these limited water resources, the residents of the Iranian Wadis have been traditionally using several water use systems(WUSs) which affect natural hydrological processes. In this study, WUSs and soil and water conservation measures(SWCMs) were integrated in a hydrological model of the Halilrood Basin in Iran. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool(SWAT) model was used to simulate the hydrological processes between 1993 and 2009 at daily time scale. To assess the importance of WUSs and SWCMs, we compared a model setup without WUSs and SWCMs(Default model) with a model setup with WUSs and SWCMs(WUS-SWCM model). When compared to the observed daily stream flow, the number of acceptable calibration runs as defined by the performance thresholds(Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency(NSE)≥0.68, –25%≤percent bias(PBIAS)≤25% and ratio of standard deviation(RSR)≤0.56) is 177 for the Default model and 1945 for the WUS-SWCM model. Also, the average Kling–Gupta efficiency(KGE) of acceptable calibration runs for the WUS-SWCM model is higher in both calibration and validation periods. When WUSs and SWCMs are implemented, surface runoff(between 30% and 99%) and water yield(between 0 and 18%) decreased in all sub-basins. Moreover, SWCMs lead to a higher contribution of groundwater flow to the channel and compensate for the extracted water by WUSs from the shallow aquifer. In summary, implementing WUSs and SWCMs in the SWAT model enhances model plausibility significantly.

Comparison of two different methods for determining flow direction in catchment hydrological modeling

Digital elevation models （DEMs） are widely used to define the flow direction in distributed hydrological models for simulation of streamflow. In recent decades, numerous methods for flow direction determination have been applied successfully to mountainous regions. Nevertheless, some problems still exist when those methods are used for flat or gently sloped areas The present study reviews the conventional methods of determining flow direction for such landscapes and analyzes the problems of these methods. Two different methods of determining flow direction are discussed and were applied to the Xitiaoxi Catchment, located in the Taihu Basin in southern China, which has both mountainous and flat terrain. Both the agree method and the shortest path method use drainage networks derived from a remote sensing image to determine the correct location of the stream. The results indicate that the agree method provides a better fit with the DEM for the hilly region than the shortest path method. For the flat region where the flow has been diverted and rerouted by land managers, both methods require observation of the drainage network to determine the flow direction. In order to clarify the applicability of the two methods, both are employed in catchment hydrological models conceptually based on the Xinanjiang model and implemented with PCRaster. The simulation results show that both methods can be successfully applied in hydrological modeling. There are no evident differences in the modeled discharge when using the two methods at different spatial scales.

Using high-resolution aerial images to study gully development at the regional scale in southern China

There are 239,100 gullies in southern China,which cause the degradation of ecological system.However,studies on gully development at the regional scale is relatively lack.The purpose of this study is to analyze the regional gully dynamics and explore how land use and topographic factors affect gully development.Input data consists of land use maps derived from high-resolution images from 2004 to 2014,and topography maps from a digital elevation model with a pixel size of 8 m×8 m in two 25-km2 study sites of Anxi(AX)and Xingning county(XN).The following results were obtained:(1)AX gullies decreased from 2006 to 2014 while XN first increased from 2004 to 2009,and then decreased from 2009 to 2014.Both AX and XN gully area in percentage of the total area ranged from 1%to 3%,which was higher than the average 0.25%of the whole southern China by the artificial survey in 2005.(2)Most of AX and XN gullies occurred along the ridgeline and had the close relationships with the upstream contributing area and slope gradient.(3)New gullies developed on the exposed land and forestland.The lost gullies were converted into forestland and grassland.In fact,most of these gullies were only covered by vegetation,not real disappearance.These results proved that gully decreased,but construction of roads and buildings intensified gully development.Consequently,these findings reveal that vegetation protection and ecological restoration should be adopted in southern China.