Challenges in modelling of water quantity and quality in two contrasting meso-scale catchments in Poland

Abstract

For citation: Marcinkowski P., Piniewski M., Kardel I., Srinivasan R., Okruszko T. 2016. Challenges in modelling of water quantity and quality in two contrasting meso-scale catchments in Poland. Journal of Water and Land Development. No. 31 p. 97-111. DOI: 10.1515/jwld-2016. AbstractThis study presents an application of the SWAT model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) in two meso--scale catchments in Poland (Upper Narew and Barycz), contrasting in terms of human pressures on water quantity and quality. The main objective was multi-variable and multi-site calibration and validation of the model against daily discharge, sediment and nutrient loads as well as discussion of challenges encountered in calibration phase. Multi-site calibration and validation gave varied results ranging from very good (daily discharge) to acceptable (sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus loads in most of gauges) and rather poor (individual gauges for all variables) in both catchments. The calibrated models enabled spatial quantification of water yield, sediment and nutrient loads, indicating areas of special concern in terms of pollution, as well as estimation of contribution of pollution from different sources, indicating agriculture as the most important source in both catchments. During the calibration process a number of significant issues were encountered: (i) global vs. local parametrization, (ii) simulation of different pools of water quality parameters in reservoirs and streams and (iii) underestimation of NO 3 -N loads in winter due to farmers practices. Discussion of these issues is hoped to aid SWAT model users in Poland in a deeper understanding of mechanisms of multi-variable and multi-site calibration.

Effect of Climate Change on Hydrology, Sediment and Nutrient Losses in Two Lowland Catchments in Poland

“…In this study, we build upon the existing, extensively calibrated and validated SWAT models of the Barycz and the Upper Narew catchments [35]. While the full description of model setup, calibration and validation was presented in the latter study, here we provide a brief overview, important in the context of the main goal of the present paper.…”

“…Marcinkowski et al [35] reported variable values of goodness-of-fit measures across different gauges and variables. For discharge, simulations were assessed as good (median KGE above 0.7 in both catchments).…”

“…Moriasi et al [40] for evaluation criteria). Among reasons for poor behavior in some stations, Marcinkowski et al [35] reported: (1) the dominant importance of global over local parameters in calibration; (2) simultaneous calibration of different pools of water quality parameters (with different optimal parameter sets achieved for different pools); and (3) input uncertainty (e.g., differences between defined agricultural management operations and the reality). A previous study applying SWAT in Poland for modeling water quality also showed that [41], frequently, the magnitude of the highest observed loads of nutrients is captured well by the model, but there is a shift in timing by a few days (the flood peak is sometimes advanced or lagged by 1-3 days compared with the timing of the peak identified in the observed data) which has a negative effect on the objective function value.…”

Investigations of the mechanism of the fouling in microgranular adsorptive filtration

“…The modelling of filtration process is difficult due to influence of various factors [MARCINKOWSKI et al 2016;MIODUSZEWSKI et al 2014;SCHALLER et al 2006]. For example, the mechanism in ultrafiltration (UF) is not clearly explained mainly because of the diversity of its application in different arrangements.…”

Evaluating the HYPE model for estimating groundwater recharge in a groundwater dominated catchment in Poland

“…Examples of such models are MIKE SHE (Refsgaard & Storm 1995), SHET-RAN (Ewen et al 2000), TOPMODEL (Beven et al 1984), HBV (Lindström et al 1997) and SWAT (Neitsch et al 2002). The SWAT and HYPE models visualize the circulation of water and nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) starting from the catchment scale up to the continental scale (Abbaspour et al 2015, Donnelly et al 2014, 2016, Marcinkowski et al 2016, Piniewski 2016, Sitek & Ulańczyk 2016.…”