Simulator for Water Resources in Rural Basins

Abstract

A model called SWRRB (Simulator for Water Resources in Rural Basins) was developed for simulating hydrologic and related processes in rural basins. The objective in model development was to predict the effect of management decisions on water and sediment yields with reasonable accuracy for ungaged rural basins throughout the United States. The three major components of SWRRB are weather, hydrology, and sedimentation. Processes considered include surface runoff, percolation, return flow, evapotranspiration, pond and reservoir storage, and sedimentation. The SWRRB model was developed by modifying the CREAMS (Chemicals, Runoff, and Erosion from Agricultural Management Systems) daily rainfall hydrology model for application to large, complex, rural basins. The major changes were: (1) A return flow component was added; (2) the model was expanded to allow simultaneous computations on several sub‐basins; (3) a reservoir storage component was added for use in determining the effects of farm ponds and other reservoirs on water and sediment yield; (4) a weather simulation model (precipitation, solar radiation, and temperature) was added to provide for longer‐term simulations and more representative weather inputs, both temporally and spatially; (5) a better method was developed for predicting the peak runoff rate; and (6) a simple flood routing component was added. Besides water, SWRRB also simulates sediment yield using the Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE) and a sediment routing model. Tests with data from a $538{\mathrm{km}}^2$ basin in Oklahoma and a $17.7{\mathrm{km}}^2$ basin in Texas indicate that SWRRB is capable of simulating water and sediment yield realistically.