Impacts of Soil Information on Process-Based Hydrological Modelling in the Upper Goukou Catchment, South Africa
Open Access
- 29 January 2022
- Vol. 14 (3), 407
- https://doi.org/10.3390/w14030407
Abstract
Although soils form an integral part of landscape hydrological processes, the importance of soil information in hydrological modelling is often neglected. This study investigated the impact of soil information on streamflow modelling accuracy and hydrological process representation. Two different levels of soil information were compared to long-term streamflow in the upper Goukou catchment (230 km2), South Africa, over a period of 23 years using the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT+). The land-type soil map (LTSM) dataset was less detailed and derived from the best, readily available soil dataset for South Africa currently. The hydrological soil map (HSM) dataset was more detailed and was created using infield hydropedological soil observations combined with digital soil-mapping techniques. Monthly streamflow simulation was similar for both soil datasets, with Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency and Kling–Gupta efficiency values of 0.57 and 0.59 (HSM) and 0.56 and 0.60 (LTSM), respectively. It is, however, important to assess through which hydrological processes were these streamflow values generated as well as their spatial distribution within the catchment. Upon further assessment, the representation of hydrological processes within the catchment differed greatly between the two datasets, with the HSM more accurately representing the internal hydrological processes, as it was based on infield observations. It was concluded that hydropedological information could be of great value in effective catchment management strategies since it improves representation of internal catchment processes.This publication has 55 references indexed in Scilit:
- Decomposition of the mean squared error and NSE performance criteria: Implications for improving hydrological modellingJournal of Hydrology, 2009
- A manifesto for the equifinality thesisJournal of Hydrology, 2006
- On the need for catchment classificationJournal of Hydrology, 2004
- On digital soil mappingGeoderma, 2003
- Identification of the spatial distribution of soils using a process-based terrain characterizationGeoderma, 2001
- rosetta: a computer program for estimating soil hydraulic parameters with hierarchical pedotransfer functionsJournal of Hydrology, 2001
- Equifinality, data assimilation, and uncertainty estimation in mechanistic modelling of complex environmental systems using the GLUE methodologyJournal of Hydrology, 2001
- Effects of spatial detail of soil information on watershed modelingJournal of Hydrology, 2001
- A similarity model for representing soil spatial informationGeoderma, 1997
- River flow forecasting through conceptual models part I — A discussion of principlesJournal of Hydrology, 1970