Abstract
Incalaue is a tributary of Lugenda River in NSR (Niassa Special Reserve) in North-Eastern Mozambique. NSR is a data-poor remote area and there is a need for rainfall-runoff data to inform decisions on water resources management, and scientific methods are needed for this wide expanse of land. This study assessed the potential of a combination of NASA-POWER (National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources) remotely sensed rainfall data and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) soil and land use/cover data for modelling rainfall-runoff in Incalaue river basin. DEM (Digital Elevation Model) of 1:250,000 scale and a grid resolution of 30 m × 30 m downloaded from USGS (the United States Geological Survey) website; clipped river basin FAO digital soil and land use/cover maps; and field-collected data were used. SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model was used to assess rainfall -runoff data generated using the NASA-POWER dataset and gauged rainfall and river flow data collected during fieldwork. FAO soil and land use/cover datasets which are globally available and widely used in the region were used for comparison with soil data collected during fieldwork. Field collected data showed that soil in the area is predominantly sandy loam and only sand content and bulk density were uniformly distributed across the soil samples. SWAT model showed a good rainfall-runoff relationship using NASA-POWER data for the area (R2 = 0.7749) for the studied period (2019-2021). There was an equally strong rainfall-runoff relationship for gauged data (R2 = 0.8131). There were uniform trends for the rainfall, temperature, and relative humidity in NASA-POWER meteorological data. Timing of peaks and lows in rainfall and river flow observed in the field and modelled were confirmed by residents as the trend in the area. This approach was used because there was no historical rainfall and river flow data since the river basin is ungauged for hydrologic data. The study showed that NASA-POWER data has the potential for use for modelling the rainfall-runoff in the basin. The difference in rainfall-runoff relationship with field-collected data could be because of landscape characteristics or topsoil layer not catered for in the FAO soil data.
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