Abstract
The Hydrological Simulation Program–Fortran (HSPF) is a hydrological and water quality computer model that was developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Comprehensive performance evaluations were carried out for hydrological and nutrient simulation using the HSPF model in the Xitiaoxi watershed in China. Streamflow simulation was calibrated from 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2007 and then validated from 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2010 using daily observed data, and nutrient simulation was calibrated and validated using monthly observed data during the period from July 2009 to July 2010. These results of model performance evaluation showed that the streamflows were well simulated over the study period. The determination coefficient (R2) was 0.87, 0.77 and 0.63, and the Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of efficiency (Ens) was 0.82, 0.76 and 0.65 for the streamflow simulation in annual, monthly and daily time-steps, respectively. Although limited to monthly observed data, satisfactory performance was still achieved during the quantitative evaluation for nutrients. The R2 was 0.73, 0.82 and 0.92, and the Ens was 0.67, 0.74 and 0.86 for nitrate, ammonium and orthophosphate simulation, respectively. Some issues may affect the application of HSPF were also discussed, such as input data quality, parameter values, etc. Overall, the HSPF model can be successfully used to describe streamflow and nutrients transport in the mesoscale watershed located in the East Asian monsoon climate area. This study is expected to serve as a comprehensive and systematic documentation of understanding the HSPF model for wide application and avoiding possible misuses.
Highlights
Human activities are accelerating environmental changes throughout the world, including threatening freshwater resources and aquatic biodiversity [1,2]
From a case study in Hualien County, Taiwan, the results reveal that the Hydrological Simulation Program–Fortran (HSPF) model has a better performance than the FLO-2D model at peak flow and flow recession period, and can successfully replicate the influence zone of the debris-flow disaster event with an acceptable error [22]
The Geographic Information Retrieval and Analysis System (GIRAS), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer land cover product (MODIS MOD12Q1) and the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD), datasets were used to evaluate the impact of land use on hydrology and sediment components, and the results showed that sediment predictions were more sensitive than streamflow predictions to the scale and resolution of land use datasets [61,62]
Summary
Human activities are accelerating environmental changes throughout the world, including threatening freshwater resources and aquatic biodiversity [1,2]. Eutrophication as a result of human activities is a widespread problem in rivers, lakes, estuaries, and coastal oceans that is caused by nutrient enrichment, which seriously degrades aquatic ecosystems and impairs the use of water for drinking, industry, agriculture, recreation, and other purposes [3]. Many countries have confirmed that nonpoint source pollution coming from agriculture and urban activities in the watershed scale are major sources of nitrogen and phosphorus to aquatic ecosystems [3]. Nonpoint source pollution is related to rainfall runoff, soil erosion and chemical substance migration. The occurrence of nutrient transport is driven by the hydrological processes, Int. J. Public Health 2017, 14, 1599; doi:10.3390/ijerph14121599 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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