Effects of hydrologic conditions on SWAT model performance and parameter sensitivity for a small, mixed land use catchment in New Zealand

Me, W.; Abell, J. M.; Hamilton, D. P.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4127-2015

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 4127–4147, 2015

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4127-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 19, 4127–4147, 2015

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4127-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

Research article 13 Oct 2015

Research article | 13 Oct 2015

Effects of hydrologic conditions on SWAT model performance and parameter sensitivity for a small, mixed land use catchment in New Zealand

W. Me et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 13 Oct 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 29 Apr 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C1288: 'For authors', Anonymous Referee #1, 29 Apr 2015
- AC C3267: 'Response to 1st reviewer's comments', Wang Me, 24 Aug 2015
RC C1886: 'Review of the Paper W. Me et al', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Jun 2015
- AC C3268: 'Response to 2nd reviewer's comments', Wang Me, 24 Aug 2015
RC C2235: 'Review comments on manuscript: Modelling water, sediment and nutrient fluxes from a mixed land–use catchment in New Zealand: Effects of hydrologic conditions on SWAT model performance', Anonymous Referee #3, 25 Jun 2015
- AC C3269: 'Response to 3rd reviewer comments', Wang Me, 24 Aug 2015
EC C2285: 'Comment', Fabrizio Fenicia, 29 Jun 2015
- AC C3270: 'Response to Editor's comments', Wang Me, 24 Aug 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (25 Aug 2015) by Fabrizio Fenicia

AR by Wang Me on behalf of the Authors (27 Aug 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (27 Aug 2015) by Fabrizio Fenicia

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (27 Aug 2015)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (23 Sep 2015)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors from the paper entitled : “Effects of hydrologic conditions on SWAT model performance and 1 parameter sensitivity for a small, mixed land use catchment in New Zealand” performed a major revision making the manuscript more clear and better. The organization of the paper is better as well as the description of the model set up, sensitivity analysis and calibration procedures. They attended all of the major points made by the reviewers and editor. There are a few small topics that I wish they take into consideration prior to publication:

• Line 26, Page 5 : what is LTS? Was it explained before?
• In lines 27-28 of page 6: “The SWAT model version used (SWAT2009_rev488) runs on a daily time step”, but then on lines 31-32: “Hourly rainfall estimates were used as hydrologic forcing data” and lines2-4 of page 7 “Therefore, the hourly rainfall/Green & Ampt infiltration/daily routing method (Neitsch et al., 2011) was chosen to simulate upland and in–stream processes.” These arguments go against each. The SWAT model runs with hourly data if your input is hourly data and Green & Ampt, but you are using the exported results of daily data, right? Please clarify this on the text saying that the model was run on hourly time step, but daily results were used for the paper;
• Also make sure you were running on Green & Ampt with daily routing: as before there was an error on the text material of the SWAT model, and that the Green and Ampt method is used for hourly precipitation and hourly routing as well. As you can see this was clarified in the current version of SWAT in the IEVENT: there is the SCS option and the Subdaily rainfall data/Runoff estimated with Green & Ampt method/Hourly stream routing. I know you used a previous version, but please check if routing was really conducted in daily scale in the model, not only in the model text description. I had some issues running on this format and by checking with the developers this last year, they clarified that it was not running on that format and left only these two options of IEVENT.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (24 Sep 2015) by Fabrizio Fenicia

AR by Wang Me on behalf of the Authors (02 Oct 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (05 Oct 2015) by Fabrizio Fenicia

Short summary

This study examined the applicability of the SWAT model to a moderately steep, temperate, small–sized catchment in Rotorua, New Zealand. It highlighted the importance of using high–frequency, event–based monitoring data for model calibration to alleviate the potential of underestimation of storm–driven fluxes. Parameter sensitivity was quantified for discharge, sediment and nutrient fluxes dependent on the relative dominance of base flow and quick flow.