Application of WetSpa model for assessing land use impacts on floods in the Margecany–Hornad watershed, Slovakia

Abstract

The spatially distributed hydrologic model WetSpa combines elevation, soil and land use data within GIS, to predict flood hydrographs and spatial distribution of hydrologic characteristics in a watershed. The model is applied to the Margecany-Hornad river basin (1131 km2) in Slovakia. Daily hydrometeorological data from 1991-2000, including precipitation data from nine stations, temperature data from four stations and evaporation data measured at one station are used as input to the model. Three base maps, i.e. DEM, land use and soil type are prepared in GIS form, using 100 x 100 m cell size. Results of the simulations show good agreement between calculated and measured hydrographs. The model predicts the daily/hourly hydrographs with 75-80% accuracy according to the Nash-Sutcliff criteria. For assessing the impact of land use changes on floods, the calibrated model is applied for a reforestation scenario, which considers a 50% increase of forest areas. The model results show that the reforestation scenario decreases the peak discharge by 12%. Investigation of peak discharges from the whole simulation period, shows that the scenario results are reduced by 18% on average, while for small discharges the reduction is even about 34%. The time to peak of the simulated hydrograph of the reforestation scenario is 20 hours longer than for the present land use.

Assessing the hydrological effects of land-use changes on a catchment using the Markov chain and WetSpa models

“…A moisture-related modified rational method with potential runoff coefficient was applied for excess rainfall calculation (Liu and De Smedt 2004, Bahremand et al 2006, Albhaisi et al 2013). These calculations were done according to land cover, soil type, slope, the magnitude of rainfall and the antecedent soil moisture as documented in previous research (Liu and De Smedt 2004, Bahremand et al 2006, Albhaisi et al 2013.…”

“…The WetSpa model is made of a simple structure so that evapotranspiration, excess runoff, interflow, percolation and infiltration are calculated pointwise (Liu and De Smedt 2005). The routing of channel flow and excess runoff is carried out using the diffusive wave approximation of the St. Venant equation given as (Bahremand et al 2006):…”

“…such as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) and the Runoff Routing Model (RORB), have been used to estimate runoff (Memarian et al 2014, Khoi and Suetsugi 2014, Chen and Yu 2015, Tan et al 2015. Additionally, some models, such as the Water and Energy Transfer between Soil, Plant and Atmosphere (WetSpa), can combine the hydrological processes with land-use (LU) change detection techniques (Bahremand et al 2006, 2007, Albhaisi et al 2013, Wang and Chen 2019.…”

“…The high potential of WetSpa in predicting spatial hydrological components of different conditions has been well documented (Bahremand et al 2006, 2007, Tavakoli and De Smedt 2013, Karimi et al 2016. Major advantages of the WetSpa model include the use of a GIS (geographic information system) platform, based on physically-based processes, incorporating distributed hydrological modelling and requiring a few parameters for calibration (Hosseini andAshraf 2015, Abdollahi et al 2018).…”

Groundwater Recharge in the Cerrado Biome, Brazil—A Multi-Method Study at Experimental Watershed Scale

“…The model description was executed based on Liu and Smedt [77] and Bahremand et al [78]. More details of the mathematical formulation and assumptions are available in the referenced studies.…”