Hydrological Modelling in the Lake Tana Basin, Ethiopia Using SWAT Model

Abstract

The SWAT2005 model was applied to the Lake Tana Basin for modeling of the hydrological water balance. The main objective of this study was to test the performance and feasibility of the SWAT model for prediction of stream- flow in the Lake Tana Basin. The model was calibrated and validated on four tributaries of Lake Tana; Gumera, GilgelA- bay, Megech and Ribb rivers using SUFI-2, GLUE and ParaSol algorithms. The sensitivity analysis of the model to sub- basin delineation and HRU definition thresholds showed that the flow is more sensitive to the HRU definition thresholds than subbasin discretization effect. SUFI-2 and GLUE gave good result. All sources of uncertainties were captured by bracketing more than 60% of the observed river discharge. Baseflow (40% - 60%) is an important component of the total discharge within the study area that contributes more than the surface runoff. The calibrated model can be used for further analysis of the effect of climate and land use change as well as other different management scenarios on streamflow and soil erosion.