A GLUE-based assessment of WaTEM/SEDEM for simulating soil erosion, transport, and deposition in soil conservation optimised agricultural watersheds

Abstract

Abstract. Soil erosion models are essential tools for soil conservation planning. Although these models are generally well-tested against plot and field data for in-field soil management, challenges arise when scaling up to the landscape level, where sediment trapping along landscape features becomes increasingly critical. At this scale, a separate analysis of model performance in representing erosion, sediment transport, and deposition processes is both challenging and often lacking. In this study, we assessed the capacity of the spatially distributed erosion and sediment transport model WaTEM/SEDEM to simulate sediment yields in six micro-scale watersheds ranging from 0.8 to 7.8 ha, monitored over eight years from 1994 to 2001. The watersheds were comprised of two groups: four field-dominated watersheds characterised by arable land with minimal landscape structures, and two structure-dominated watersheds featuring a combination of arable land and linear landscape structures (mainly grassed waterways along thalwegs) that minimise sediment connectivity. This setup enabled a separate analysis of model performance for both watershed groups. A Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) framework was employed to account for measurement and model uncertainties across multiple spatiotemporal scales. Our results show that while WaTEM/SEDEM generally captured the magnitude of the very low measured sediment yields in the monitored watersheds, the model did not meet our pre-defined limits of acceptability when operating on annual timesteps. However, the WaTEM/SEDEM's performance improved substantially when model realisations were aggregated across the eight-year monitoring period and over the two watershed groups, with mean absolute errors of 0.11 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ for field-dominated and 0.18 t ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ for structure-dominated watersheds. Our findings demonstrate that the model can represent the influence of soil conservation measures on reducing soil erosion and sediment delivery but performs better for long-term conservation planning at larger scales than for precise annual predictions in individual micro-scale watersheds with specific conservation practices.