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Watershed Scale Environmental Changes and the Effects on Water Resources

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Quality and Contamination".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2025 | Viewed by 564

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
USDA-ARS Coastal Plains Soil, Water, and Plant Research Center, Florence, SC, USA
Interests: water quality; water quantity; contaminants; agriculture; climate change; land cover change; hydrology; modeling; environment
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

At the watershed level, water resources are used for various humans activities including agriculture, fishery, domestic supply, industry, recreation, transport, and energy. The multiplicity and magnitude of these anthropogenic water usages cause pressures on existing water resources which are affected qualitatively and quantitatively. Hence, a thorough understanding of environmental and climate change effects on water resources is needed to envision strategies that enhance water resource management and sustain natural ecosystems. This Special Issue of Water will assemble high-quality research, methodology, and review papers aiming to improve knowledge and practices in water quality and quantity management at the watershed scale. Watershed modeling research papers are welcomed, in addition to papers that address climate change, agriculture, land-cover changes, environmental changes, and livestock (grazing) in relation to water resources.  

Dr. Clement D. D. Sohoulande
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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Keywords

  • water quality
  • water quantity
  • contaminants
  • agriculture
  • climate change
  • land cover change
  • hydrology
  • modeling
  • environment

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

10 pages, 3335 KiB  
Article
Spatial Analysis to Retrieve SWAT Model Reservoir Parameters for Water Quality and Quantity Assessment
by Clement D. D. Sohoulande
Water 2025, 17(6), 834; https://doi.org/10.3390/w17060834 - 14 Mar 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 397
Abstract
Owing to their capacity to conserve water and regulate streamflow, small reservoirs are useful for agriculture, domestic water supply, energy production, industry, flood control, recreation, fisheries, and ecosystem conservation. The presence of these small reservoirs often affects the natural water pathways, but the [...] Read more.
Owing to their capacity to conserve water and regulate streamflow, small reservoirs are useful for agriculture, domestic water supply, energy production, industry, flood control, recreation, fisheries, and ecosystem conservation. The presence of these small reservoirs often affects the natural water pathways, but the use of a hydrological model such as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) can help to better apprehend these effects at the watershed scale. Indeed, the SWAT model allows modelers to represent and operate reservoirs by inputting the related parameters while setting the model. However, these reservoir parameters are not automatically generated by the SWAT model algorithms. Subsequently, SWAT users are left alone and must sort out the adequate approach to separately obtain or determine the reservoir parameters. Traditionally, reservoir parameters such as the volumes and surface areas are obtained through in situ hydrographic surveys which are costly and labor demanding. To help SWAT modelers retrieve the input parameters needed for modeling small reservoirs, this paper explicitly presents a spatial analysis procedure using the case study of a small watershed reservoir. In this procedure, the digital elevation model of the watershed is transformed into a triangulated irregular network and turned into contour lines which are used to identify the reservoir surface and volume at the principal and emergency spillways. The retrieved parameters were successfully used to calibrate and validate SWAT simulations of the watershed hydrological behavior. The spatial analysis procedure reported here is a cost-effective alternative to traditional in situ hydrographic surveys and it is useful for addressing watersheds with small reservoirs. The procedure eases the inclusion of reservoirs in SWAT and reduces the risk of model overfitting. Furthermore, the procedure could be useful for developing reservoir elevation–capacity–area curves. Full article
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