Abstract
The study provides a new assessment of the water balance components of the catchment (evapotranspiration, surface and lateral flow etc. and its spatial distribution and temporal variability) for the transboundary catchment of Western Dvina river within the poorly gauged Russian part of the catchment.The study focuses on modeling the inland flow generation processes using open source data and the SWAT (Soil Water Assessment Tool) hydrological model. The high interannual variability of river flow and impact of snowmelt processes were especially taken into account when setting up the model and processing the calibration. The database of daily meteorological data for the period 1981 – 2016 was prepared using global atmospheric reanalysis ERA-Interim data and observed station data from the GSOD NCDC/NOAA and ECA&D datasets. The considered datasets were tested on plausibility and regionalized. The catchment model was built on the basis of open land use / land cover (LULC) data sets, topography and soil, so that the entire transboundary catchment area could be easily implemented in the next step. For the daily model calibration, 19 sensitive parameters were chosen manually. The most sensitive are the parameters which consider snow melting processes and flow recession curve number. The highest impact on water balance components has the area and distribution of wetlands. Lakes strongly affect the evapotranspiration rate. The study provides further research with uncertainty analysis and recommendations for model improvement and model limitations. The developed modelling approach can be used to assess water resources, climate change impacts, and water quality issues in comparable regions.
Highlights
An exact knowledge of catchment-scale water balance is important in international river basins, which cover two or more countries
The main goal of this study was to set up a hydrological model for a Russian subcatchment of the transboundary Western Dvina watershed based on the open source data
The analysis of climate data from different sources was performed to identify the best input for the hydrological model SWAT
Summary
An exact knowledge of catchment-scale water balance is important in international (transboundary) river basins, which cover two or more countries. Western Dvina Runoff SWAT Modeling task in international water management, environmental pollution control and the prevention of health problems. In transboundary basins, both water use and monitoring are often not fully coordinated between riparian states (Alekseevskii et al, 2015; Krengel et al, 2018). The consequences include data inconsistency and (sometimes critical) information gaps (Karthe et al, 2015). This can lead to inadequate scientific assessments or management strategies. These problems emphasize the need to develop new monitoring and modeling tools that take into account the specific challenges encountered in transboundary basins
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