Abstract
The soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) is a well-known hydrological modeling tool that has been applied in various hydrologic and environmental simulations. A total of 206 studies over a 15-year period (2005–2019) were identified from various peer-reviewed scientific journals listed on the SWAT website database, which is supported by the Centre for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD). These studies were categorized into five areas, namely applications considering: water resources and streamflow, erosion and sedimentation, land-use management and agricultural-related contexts, climate-change contexts, and model parameterization and dataset inputs. Water resources studies were applied to understand hydrological processes and responses in various river basins. Land-use and agriculture-related context studies mainly analyzed impacts and mitigation measures on the environment and provided insights into better environmental management. Erosion and sedimentation studies using the SWAT model were done to quantify sediment yield and evaluate soil conservation measures. Climate-change context studies mainly demonstrated streamflow sensitivity to weather changes. The model parameterization studies highlighted parameter selection in streamflow analysis, model improvements, and basin scale calibrations. Dataset inputs mainly compared simulations with rain-gauge and global rainfall data sources. The challenges and advantages of the SWAT model’s applications, which range from data availability and prediction uncertainties to the model’s capability in various applications, are highlighted. Discussions on considerations for future simulations such as data sharing, and potential for better future analysis are also highlighted. Increased efforts in local data availability and a multidimensional approach in future simulations are recommended.
Highlights
Hydrological and related water-assessment simulations have been widely used in addressing a broad spectrum of water-resources challenges globally
While acknowledging that the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model has been applied in a wide array of studies globally, this paper review made an effort to condense and classify the SWAT applications into similar areas with the aforementioned review papers from around the globe, some of these areas are closely related or overlap each other
The specific objectives of this review study are: (i) to summarize the key findings of SWAT applications in several studies in Africa, (ii) to analyze current challenges associated with SWAT model application in the African continent, and (iii) identify potential SWAT model improvements that can be applied in future research using the model in Africa
Summary
Hydrological and related water-assessment simulations have been widely used in addressing a broad spectrum of water-resources challenges globally. There have been many applications of the SWAT model regarding water resources and related environmental assessments in Africa since the 2000s [5]. The aforementioned reviews mainly focused on applications such as model capability assessment, climate change assessment, land use/management, parameter and data input assessments, hydrology, and plant growth. The review was broadly categorized into six summary sections, applications considering: water resources and streamflow, erosion- and sedimentation-related studies, land-use management and agricultural-related contexts, climate-change contexts, and parameterization and dataset inputs. The review was broadly categorized into six summary sections, applications considering: water resources and streamflow, erosion- and sedimentation-related studies, land-use management and agricultural-related contexts, climate-change contexts, oafn2d0 parameterization and dataset inputs. The SWAT was applied to quantify the freshwater availability for the whole African continen6t oaft2a0 detailed sub-basin level, and on a monthly basis with uncertainty analysis for 207 discharge stations, using only globally readily available data sets [27]
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