Application of the SWAT model to assess climate and land use/cover change impacts on water balance components of the Kabul River Basin, Afghanistan

• DOI: 10.2166/wcc.2022.261
• Publication Date: 2022-11-08T12:15:33Z
• Authors: Jamal Hassan Ougahi; Shahid Karim; Syed Amer Mahmood
• Keywords: Water resources; Representative Concentration Pathways; Climate Change and Variability Research; Precipitation; Oceanography; Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering; 01 natural sciences; Climate change; GE1-350; TD1-1066; Water Science and Technology; Climatology; Global and Planetary Change; Evapotranspiration; Geography; Ecology; kabul river basin; Soil and Water Assessment Tool; Hydrology (agriculture); Geology; 6. Clean water; Surface Water Mapping; climate change; Hydrological Modeling and Water Resource Management; Physical Sciences; SWAT model; water balance components; land use change; Cartography; Land cover; Hydrological Modeling; Drainage basin; Streamflow; Climate model; Environmental science; Global Flood Risk Assessment and Management; Meteorology; swat model; Machine learning; Water balance; Biology; Land use, land-use change and forestry; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences; Baseline (sea); FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences; 15. Life on land; Watershed Simulation; Watershed; Computer science; Environmental sciences; Geotechnical engineering; 13. Climate action; FOS: Biological sciences; Environmental Science; Land use; Flood Inundation Modeling; Climate Modeling

Abstract Hydrological models play a key role in simulating and assessing climate and land use/cover (LULC) change impacts on hydrology in a watershed. In this study, the impact of climate and LULC change was investigated using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. The simulated and observed streamflow showed a good agreement. Both Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) and coefficient of determination (R2) were found to be greater than 0.7 during the calibration (1985–2002) and validation (2003–2012) period. The water balance components were simulated with inputs from downscaled Global Climate Models (GCMs) data (i.e., future scenario (2030–2100) relative to a baseline period (1974–2004)) under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, and hypothetical generated LULC change scenarios. All GCMs projected an increase in temperature over the Kabul River Basin (KRB), whereas there was a lack of agreement on projected precipitation among GCMs under both emission and future scenarios. Water yield (WYLD) and evapotranspiration (ET) were projected to decrease in the 21st century. Average annual WYLD was projected to increase under the agriculture-dominant scenario, whereas it decreased under forest and grassland-dominant scenarios. These results are valuable for relevant agencies and stakeholders to adopt measures to counter the negative impacts of climate and LULC change on water resources.