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the processes by itself, but only presents develop the model set-up of the Reda
the final response, leaving the driving catchment, (2) calibrate and validate the
forces, which trigger the changes, unin- model against daily water discharge, and
vestigated. Hence, a modelling tool such bi-monthly measurements of total sus-
as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool pended sediment (TSS), nitrate nitro-
SWAT (Neitsch et al. 2011) can be gen (N-NO3) and phosphate phosphorus
helpful in providing a detailed descrip- (P-PO4) loads.
tion of processes occurring in catchment
through simulations transforming input
data into output signal determining the MATERIAL AND METHODS
water quantity and quality. The SWAT
model has proven to be an effective Study area
simulation tool, which is manifested by The River Reda is situated in northern
its growing worldwide use (Arnold et al. Poland in Pomeranian Province (Fig. 1),
2012), in particular in the USA (Srini- in the proximity of the Tricity (Gdask,
vasan et al. 1998, Amatya et al. 2008), Gdynia, Sopot) metropolitan area. Its
in the Baltic Sea region: in Finland (Tat- drainage area equal to 482 km2 is the
tari et al. 2009), Sweden (Ekstrand et al. largest sub-catchment of the Puck Bay
2010), Denmark (Hoang et al. 2012), and catchment. It belongs to the marine area
Poland (Ostojski 2012, Piniewski et al. of the Nadmorski Landscape Park, a de-
2013, Smarzyska 2013). This study was signated HELCOM Baltic Sea Protected
carried out in the Reda catchment situ- Area.
ated in northern Poland (Fig. 1), drain- The annual mean basin-averaged pre-
ing an area of 482 km2 to the Puck La- cipitation is 793 mm, while the average
goon (inner Puck Bay, part of the Gulf (19912010) daily minimum and maxi-
of Gdask). Its objective was to: (1)
FIGURE 1. The Reda catchment (A) and its land cover map (B)
Modelling of discharge, nitrate and phosphate loads... 127
mum temperatures are 1.5 and 2.9C driving force behind everything that hap-
for January, and 15.4 and 21.5C for July pens in the watershed. For this study, we
(based on the nearby Institute of Meteor- selected the modified USDA Soil Con-
ology and Water Management IMGW servation Service (SCS) curve number
station in Gdynia). method for calculating surface runoff
The watershed is characterized by and the Penman-Monteith method for
a hilly landscape, where the maximum estimating potential evapotranspiration.
elevation reaches 234 m a.s.l. and sandy Channel routing was modelled using
soils dominate the landscape. In the a variable storage coefficient approach.
northern part valley is filled with peat SWAT uses the degree-day method for
deposits that stretch from west to east. snowmelt estimation.
The catchment area is predominantly oc- SWAT uses a plant growth model to
cupied by agricultural land (51.2%) and simulate all types of land covers that is
forests (41.6%), whereas the share of based on EPIC (Williams 1990). The
urban land yields 6.6%. The prevailing plant growth model is used to assess re-
crops on better quality soils are spring moval of water and nutrients from the
cereals, whereas potatoes and winter ce- root zone, transpiration, and biomass/
reals on poor quality soils. The majority /yield production. Erosion and sediment
of grasslands are cultivated as permanent yield are calculated for each HRU using
meadows and pastures. the Modified Universal Soil Loss Equa-
N-NO3 and P-PO4 are the two most tion MUSLE (Williams and Berndt
dominant forms of N and P species in the 1977), which uses the amount of runoff
Reda waters (Bogdanowicz et al. 2007). as an indicator of erosive energy. Sedi-
For this reason, these two forms were se- ment transport in the channel network is
lected for modelling in this study. a function of two processes, deposition
and degradation. The occurrence of these
Modelling tool processes is determined by the stream
SWAT is a physically based, semi-dis- power, the exposure of a channels sides
tributed, continuous-time model that and bottom to the erosive force of the
operates on a daily time step and simu- stream and the composition of channel
lates the movement of water, sediment, bank and bed sediment.
and nutrients on a watershed scale. The SWAT tracks the movement and
smallest unit of discretization is a unique transformation of several forms of nitro-
combination of land use, soil, and slope gen and phosphorus in the watershed. In
overlay, referred to as a hydrological re- the soil, the model simulates principal
sponse unit (HRU). Runoff is predicted processes included in the nutrients cycle
separately for each HRU and then aggre- that control the transformation of nu-
gated to the sub-basin level and routed trients from one form to another. In the
through the stream network to the main nitrogen cycle, the main processes are:
outlet in order to obtain the total runoff denitrification, nitrification, mineraliza-
for the river basin. tion, plant uptake, decay, fertilization,
No matter what type of problem one volatilization, and in the phosphorus cy-
studies with SWAT, water balance is the cle they are: mineralization, fertilization,
128 P. Marcinkowski et al.
decay, and plant uptake. Nutrients may Institute in Gdynia (IMGW-PIB). In the
be introduced to the main channel and studied area four main point sources of
transported downstream through sur- pollutants were identified based on the
face runoff and lateral subsurface flow. data from Regional Water Management
The in-stream water quality component Authority in Gdask (RZGW). The cal-
allows the researcher to control nutrient endars of management practices includ-
transformations in the stream. The in- ed nine main crops and were describing
stream kinetics used in SWAT for nutri- the exact dates, types of operations and
ent routing are adapted from QUAL2E their detailed parameterisation separate-
(Brown and Barnwell 1987). The model ly for each crop. The necessary informa-
tracks two pools of nutrients: those dis- tion for defining these data was acquired
solved in the stream and those adsorbed from statistical data and interviews with
to the sediment. Dissolved nutrients are the staff of the Pomeranian Agricultural
transported with the water while those Advisory Board in Gdask (PODR).
adsorbed to sediments are allowed to be
deposited with the sediment on the bed
Model calibration approach
of the channel.
SWAT is a river-basin scale model, in
Model setup which hydrological cycle drives the wa-
In this study a 50-meter resolution Dig- ter, sediment and nutrient movement.
ital Elevation Model (DEM), acquired Due to a large number of parameters,
from Voivodeship Centre of Geodesy and SWAT requires conducting calibration
Cartography Documentation in Gdask which includes fitting simulations to ob-
(WODGiK), has been used for automat- servations, usually by using automatic
ic catchment delineation and its division routines of various types. Calibration
into 30 sub-catchments (Fig. 1). From should be preceded by the sensitivity
the Corine Land Cover Map (2006) 13 analysis which measures the response
classes of land use were featured, where- of model outputs and objective func-
as the numerical soil map from Institute tion to altering input parameter values.
of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation Model validation is usually conducted
(IUNG) and geological map from Polish using calibrated parameter values for
Geological Institute National Research a different time period than the one used
Institute (PIG-PIB) allowed to feature 17 in calibration.
classes of soils. Intersection of land use In this study in the Reda catchment,
map, soil map, and slope classes resulted analyses were focused on four different
in creation of 465 Hydrologic Response variables (listed below) for which obser-
Units (HRUs). Precipitation data from vations are regularly assembled and used
five stations, and other climate variables in calibration and validation time periods
(temperature, wind speed, relative humid- as presented in brackets below. The entire
ity and solar radiation) from four stations process consisting of sensitivity analysis,
for time period 19912010 have been ac- calibration and validation was conducted
quired from Institute of Meteorology and in four iterations related to different vari-
Water Management National Research ables simulated by the model:
Modelling of discharge, nitrate and phosphate loads... 129
TABLE 1. Fitted parameter values and optimal parameter ranges calculated using SUFI-2 during cali-
bration of discharge
Mini- Maxi-
Fitted
Parameter name1 Definition mum mum
value
value value
Initial SCS runoff curve number for moisture
r__CN2.mgt 0.038 0.10 0.01
condition II (-)
v__GW_DELAY.gw Groundwater delay time (day) 397 250 500
Threshold depth of water in the shallow aquifer
r__GWQMN.gw 0.14 0.8 0.5
required for return flow to occur (mm H2O)
Threshold depth of water in the shallow aquifer
r__REVAPMN.gw for revap or percolation to the deep aquifer to 0.32 0.5 1
occur (mm H2O)
Depth from soil surface to bottom of layer
r__SOL_Z.sol 0.06 0.35 0.2
(mm)
r__SOL_BD().sol Moist bulk density (g/cm3) 0.36 0.1 0.4
r__GW_REVAP.gw Groundwater revap coefficient (-) 0.46 0.6 0.6
v__ESCO.hru Soil evaporation compensation factor (-) 0.85 0.82 1
v__TIMP.bsn Snow pack temperature lag factor (-) 0.36 0.2 0.8
r__SOL_K().sol Saturated hydraulic conductivity (mm/h) 0.38 0.8 0
r__HRU_SLP.hru Average slope steepness (m/m) 0.02 0.45 0.1
v__EPCO.hru Plant uptake compensation factor (-) 0.02 0 0.5
v__SURLAG.bsn Surface runoff lag coefficient (-) 0.1 0.05 0.45
r__RCHRG_DP.gw Deep aquifer percolation fraction (-) 0.05 0.8 0.8
r__SLSUBBSN.hru Average slope length (m) 0.02 0.05 0.4
1
r__ indicates relative change; v__ indicates replacement by a new value; suffixes .gw, .swq,
etc. SWAT file extensions.
Modelling of discharge, nitrate and phosphate loads... 131
TABLE 2. Fitted parameter values and optimal parameter ranges calculated using SUFI-2 during cali-
bration of TSS, N-NO3 and P-PO4 loads
Mini- Maxi-
Fitted
Parameter name1 Definition mum mum
value
value value
1 2 3 4 5
TSS
r__USLE_K.sol USLE equation soil erodibility (K) factor (-) 0.52 0.3 0.7
v__CH_COV2.rte The channel cover factor (-) 1.92 1.9 3
r__CH_N2.rte Mannings n-value for the main channel (-) 0.62 0.42 0.62
Median particle diameter of sediment in
v__RES_D50.res 7.76 2 8
reservoir (m)
N-NO3
v__CDN.bsn Denitrification exponential rate coefficient (-) 0.004 0 0.3
v__RCN.bsn Concentration of nitrogen in rainfall (mg/l) 1.73 1.5 1.75
Rate factor for humus mineralization of acti-
v__CMN.bsn 0.0021 0.002 0.0024
ve organic nutrients (-)
v__SDNCO.bsn Denitrification threshold water content (-) 0.941 0.94 0.96
v__NPERCO.bsn Nitrate percolation coefficient (-) 0.71 0.7 0.87
v__RSDCO.bsn Residue decomposition coefficient (-) 0.058 0.05 0.07
Initial NO3 concentration in the soil layer
r__SOL_NO3.chm 0.01 0.1 0.05
(mg N/kg soil, dry weight)
Initial organic N concentration in the soil
v__SOL_ORGN.chm 578.9 570 640
layer (mg N/kg soil, dry weight)
Rate constant for hydrolysis of organic N to
v__BC3.swq 0.34 0.32 0.35
NH4 in the reach at 20C (1/day)
v__AI1.wwq Fraction of algal biomass that is nitrogen (-) 0.0754 0.075 0.081
Half-life of nitrate in the shallow aquifer
v__HLIFE_NGW.gw 1.73 1 4
(days)
v__BIOMIX.mgt Biological mixing efficiency (-) 0.34 0.3 0.44
P-PO4
v__RSDIN.hru Initial residue cover (kg/ha) 5676 3894 6039
v__PPERCO.bsn Phosphorus percolation coefficient (m3/Mg) 12.52 11.78 13.49
v__PSP.bsn Phosphorus availability index (-) 0.189 0.13 0.26
v__RSDCO.bsn Residue decomposition coefficient (-) 0.074 0.047 0.088
Rate constant for mineralization of organic P
v__BC4.swq 0.345 0.26 0.41
to dissolved P in the reach at 20C (1/day)
Initial soluble P concentration in soil layer
r__SOL_SOLP().chm 0.137 0.15 0.05
(mg P/kg soil, dry weight)
Initial humic organic phosphorus in soil layer
v__SOL_ORGP().chm 343 275 358
(mg P/kg soil, dry weight)
Phosphorus enrichment ratio for loading with
v__ERORGP.hru 1.70 1.29 2.22
sediment (-)
132 P. Marcinkowski et al.
Table 2 cont.
1 2 3 4 5
Concentration of soluble phosphorus in
v__GWSOLP.gw groundwater contribution to streamflow from 0.070 0.03 0.116
subbasin (mg P/l)
v__AI2.wwq Fraction of algal biomass that is phosphorus 0.013 0.011 0.0132
Organic phosphorus concentration in the
v__CH_OPCO.rte 38.8 23 41
channel (mg/l)
Maximum specific algal growth rate at 20C
v__MUMAX.wwq 1.73 1.61 2.07
(1/day)
v__RHOQ.wwq Algal respiration rate at 20C (1/day) 0.350 0.29 0.382
1
r__ indicates relative change; v__ indicates replacement by a new value; suffixes .gw, .swq,
etc. SWAT file extensions.
three years, i.e. the simulation start was flow period, with frequent snowmelt and
set to 1 January 1995. This allowed sta- rain events.
bilizing the initial soil moisture content Figures 2 and 3 present discharge
as well as soil nitrogen and phosphorus simulation results only for the Reda at
pools. Wejherowo, whereas two other flow
gauges situated upstream of Wejherowo
(Fig. 1A) were used as well in calibra-
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION tion and validation. The goodness-of-fit
measures were only a little worse for
Figures 2 and 3 illustrate simulated ver- those stations than for Wejherowo; NSE
sus observed flows, TSS load, N-NO3 and R2 were equal to 0.58 and 0.65 for
load and P-PO4 load, for the calibra- Zamostne and 0.60 and 0.60 for Bol-
tion and validation periods, respec- szewo.
tively. The graphs illustrating vari- The Reda catchment is characterised
ability of discharge are presented with by the highest mean specific runoff (q,
daily time step, whereas other graphs with mean discharge per unit area) in the Polish
bi-monthly time step. The assessment Plain, exceeding 10 l/s/km2 (Stach and
criteria of hydrological model perform- Biernat 1987, Bogdanowicz et al. 2007).
ance are varied in literature. For the Furthermore, q exhibits a clear gradient
SWAT model the most commonly used from the seaside (56 l/s/km2) towards
criteria were developed by Moriasi the upland (1215 l/s/km2). A similar
et al. (2007). According to these criteria, scale of spatial variability was obtained
simulation of daily discharge by SWAT as a result of modelling in SWAT.
can be assessed as good. Both NSE and Another feature of the Reda catch-
R2 exceed 0.7 in calibration period and ment is very high (compared to other
percent bias does not exceed 10% (Ta- catchments in the Polish Plain) contribu-
ble 3). The underestimation of runoff tion of groundwater in total runoff. Ac-
occurs usually in the first quarter of the cording to the map of groundwater con-
year (January March) which is the high tribution to streamflow, two classes are
Modelling of discharge, nitrate and phosphate loads... 133
FIGURE 2. Calibration plots for discharge (A), TSS load (B), N-NO3 load (C) and P-PO4 load (D)
time period 19982002
134 P. Marcinkowski et al.
FIGURE 3. Validation plots for discharge (A), TSS load (B), N-NO3 load (C) and P-PO4 load (D) time
period 20032006
Modelling of discharge, nitrate and phosphate loads... 135
TABLE 3. Calibration and validation goodness-of-fit measures at Wejherowo gauging station (NSE
Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency; R2 coefficient of determination; PBIAS percent bias)
Specification Calibration period Validation period
Variable NSE R2 PBIAS [%] NSE R2 PBIAS [%]
Discharge 0.75 0.79 8 0.61 0.78 18
Sediment load 0.55 0.58 10 0.22 0.23 12
N-NO3 load 0.62 0.62 4 0.64 0.83 3
P-PO4 load 0.53 0.53 6 1.78 0.12 7
present in the Reda watershed: 6075% with discharge (R2 equal to 0.45 for the
and above 75% (Orsztynowicz 1988). time period 19982006). The mass bal-
A SWAT-based estimate equals 69%, ance of transported nitrate load is well
which shows a good match with the map conserved PBIAS for calibration and
of Orsztynowicz (1988). The model per- validation periods is equal to 4% and
formed reasonably well in simulation of 3%, respectively.
low flow magnitude. Low flows are ex- Simulation results for sediment load
ceptionally high in the Reda watershed are worse than those for discharge and
(simulated and observed mean annual N-NO3 loads, especially during valida-
minimum specific runoff equal to 5.4 tion period (Fig. 3B). It is noteworthy
and 6.2 l/s/km2, respectively) and dis- that the temporal variability of sedi-
charge variability is also exceptionally ment load transported through the River
low. Modelled and observed coefficient Reda at Wejherowo gauging station is
of variation of daily flows equalled to relatively low, which is determined by
0.47 and 0.48, respectively. low variability of discharge and gener-
Simulation of N-NO3 load is good, ally low TSS concentration (the values
which is reflected by relatively high val- exceeding 50 mg/l occurred only twice
ues of performance measures (NSE for per 206 observations carried out in years
calibration and validation period reached 19982006).
0.62 and 0.64, respectively) and visual in- The results of P-PO4 calibration are
spection of plots in Figures 2C and 3C. It good for calibration period and poor for
is noteworthy that SWAT correctly simu- validation period. NSE for calibration
lates seasonal variability of N-NO3 load period equals 0.53, whereas for valida-
the highest values are observed during tion period 1.78. This poor result is
winter and the lowest during summer. partly influenced by unsatisfactory TSS
Similar pattern was found for British load simulation during validation pe-
agricultural catchments by Heathwaite riod, as significant amount of P-PO4 is
and Johnes (1996), who suggested that transported with sediment. Another pos-
low N-NO3 concentrations in summer sible reason for such a large difference
months coincide with low discharge and between calibration and validation might
low dissolved oxygen concentrations. be the lack of homogeneity of observed
In the Reda catchment observed N-NO3 data between two periods. Both the loads
concentrations are strongly correlated and concentrations of P-PO4 demonstrate
136 P. Marcinkowski et al.
FIGURE 5. Plot of two uncertainty measures (p-factor against r-factor) for different model outputs
in calibration and validation periods. The arrow direction (black-grey gradient) indicates decreasing
uncertainty reflected by increasing p-factor and decreasing r-factor
Parameter values related to the best dance with other data sources (Szym-
simulation found using SUFI-2 (cf. Ta- czak and Piekarek-Jankowska 2007) as
bles 12) were written into the model. were mean nutrient loads1 at the water-
Afterwards a 20-year-long simulation shed outlet.
run was executed which defined the cur- The simulation results for the Reda
rent hydrological and geochemical con- catchment can be compared with other
ditions in the Reda catchment. Mean an- modelling studies in small agricultural
nual total runoff was equal to 299 mm. catchments in northern Europe. Lam
Because there was a very low proportion et al. (2009) obtained similar accuracy of
of surface runoff in water yield (8%) simulations for both the magnitude and
authors found that an area-specific load the dynamics of nitrate load, maintaining
of N-NO3 in surface runoff was only the seasonal variability. They also found
0.44 kg N/ha/year, compared to 2.29 and a strong correlation between N-NO3
1.15 kg N/ha/year in subsurface runoff concentration and discharge explaining
and baseflow, respectively. This differ- the underestimation of loads in winter
ence can be explained by high percolation season occurring in Kielstau catchment
of dominating sandy soils contributing due to lower peak flows simulated by the
to high N-NO3 leaching into the shallow model. Similar results were presented by
aquifer, and by relatively high slopes Schmalz et al. (2008) for the same catch-
in the study area contributing to high
N-NO3 loading in subsurface runoff. 1
http://baltyk.imgw.gdynia.pl/warunki/odplyw_
Mean annual TSS loads were in accor- zanieczyszczen.html (last accessed 28.03.2013).
138 P. Marcinkowski et al.
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Modelling of discharge, nitrate and phosphate loads... 141