45 Pags., 8 Figs., 3 Tabls. The definitive version is available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00221694The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is a well established, distributed, eco-hydrologic model. However, using the study case of an agricultural intensive irrigated watershed, it was shown that all the model versions are not able to appropriately reproduce the total streamflow in such system when the irrigation source is outside the watershed. The objective of this study was to modify the SWAT2005 version for correctly simulating the main hydrological processes. Crop yield, total streamflow, total suspended sediment (TSS) losses and phosphorus load calibration and validation were performed using field survey information and water quantity and quality data recorded during 2008 and 2009 years in Del Reguero irrigated watershed in Spain. The goodness of the calibration and validation results was assessed using five statistical measures, including the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE). Results indicated that the average annual crop yield and actual evapotranspiration estimations were quite satisfactory. On a monthly basis, the values of NSE were 0.90 (calibration) and 0.80 (validation) indicating that the modified model could reproduce accurately the observed streamflow. The TSS losses were also satisfactorily estimated (NSE = 0.72 and 0.52 for the calibration and validation steps). The monthly temporal patterns and all the statistical parameters indicated that the modified SWAT-IRRIG model adequately predicted the total phosphorus (TP) loading. Therefore, the model could be used to assess the impacts of different best management practices on nonpoint phosphorus losses in irrigated systems.This work has been financed by La Caixa bank, the General Community of Alto Aragon Irrigation Districts and the Scientific and Technologic Aula Dei Park Foundation with the valuable collaboration of the laboratory staff of CITA-DGA. We thank the Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA) for awarding Ahmed Skhiri a predoctoral fellowship.Peer reviewe
13 September 2001 in International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids