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Study of the Hydrological Functioning of the Béjà river watershed, in the Northwest of Tunisia, using the SWAT model

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Author Affiliations

  • 1 Geochemistry Lab, Department of Geology, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, 2092 Tunis El Manar, TUNISIA

Int. Res. J. Earth Sci., Volume 3, Issue (3), Pages 20-29, March,25 (2015)

Abstract

Water pollution from agricultural and human activities has become a hot issue that needs to be addressed. Its qualitative and quantitative evaluation has been well demonstrated by the SWAT model. The application of this model requires prior study of the hydrological catchment of interest and the calibration of a great number of intrinsic factors particular to the area under study. This model was mainly tested on several watersheds in the Nordic countries, including Canada and France. Its adaptation to the Mediterranean context is seldom recognized. In the case of Tunisia, the absence of a long series of continuous measurement data and hydrodynamic soil impede further application of the SWAT model. This work enabled the assessment of the performance of the hydrologic functions of the SWAT model and to adapt it to suit the context of a watershed characterized by the subhumid heavy soils of northern Tunisia, and to better understand the hydrological functioning of this basin. The need to initialize the model at least one month in advance of the desired time period was revealed. In addition, a calibration approach of the various parameters has been proposed by considering in particular the rainfall distribution during the period. In the calibration approach, the sensitivity analysis model showed the importance of some hydrodynamic parameters including the hydraulic conductivity at saturation, bulk density and cation exchange capacity, as well as the interactions of various phenomena related to the hydrological balance of the water at the final outlet, namely runoff, percolation and evapotranspiration.

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