Integrated Application of SWAT and L-THIA Models for Nonpoint Source Pollution Assessment in Data Scarce Regions

Abstract

Nonpoint source pollution (NPS) has become the most important reason for the deterioration of water quality, while relevant studies are often limited to African river and lake basins with insufficient data. Taking the Simiyu catchment of the Lake Victoria basin as the study area, we set up a NPS model based on the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT). Furthermore, the rationality of this model is verified with the field-measured data. The results manifest that: (1) the temporal variation of NPS load is consistent with the variation pattern of rainfall, the average monthly output of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) in the rainy season was 1360.6 t and 336.2 t, respectively, while in the dry season was much lower, only 13.5 t and 3.0 t, respectively; (2) in view of spatial distribution among 32 sub-basins, TN load ranged from 2.051 to 24.288 kg/ha with an average load of 12.940 kg/ha, and TP load ranged from 0.263 to 8.103 kg/ha with an average load of 3.321 kg/ha during the 16-month study period; (3) Among the land use types, the cropland contributed the highest proportion of TN and TP pollution with 50.28% and 76.29%, respectively, while the effect of forest on NPS was minimal with 0.05% and 0.02% for TN and TP, respectively. (4) Moreover, the event mean concentration (EMC) values of different land use types have been derived based on the SWAT model, which are key parameters for the application of the long-term hydrological impact assessment (L-THIA) model. Therefore, this study facilitates applying the L-THIA model to other similar data-deficient catchments in view of its relatively lower data requirement.