Articles | Volume 29, issue 23
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-6901-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-6901-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
02 Dec 2025
Research article |
| 02 Dec 2025
| 02 Dec 2025
CoSWAT Model v1: A high-resolution global SWAT+ hydrological model
Celray James Chawanda
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Water and Climate, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Elsene, 1050, Belgium
Blackland Research & Extension Center, Texas A&M Agrilife Research, Temple, 76502 TX, USA
Ann van Griensven
Department of Water and Climate, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Elsene, 1050, Belgium
Institute for Water Education (IHE) Delft, 2611 AX Delft, the Netherlands
Albert Nkwasa
Department of Water and Climate, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Elsene, 1050, Belgium
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), 2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Jose Pablo Teran Orsini
Department of Water and Climate, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Elsene, 1050, Belgium
Jaehak Jeong
Blackland Research & Extension Center, Texas A&M Agrilife Research, Temple, 76502 TX, USA
Soon-Kun Choi
National Institute of Agricultural Sciences (NAS), Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea
Raghavan Srinivasan
Blackland Research & Extension Center, Texas A&M Agrilife Research, Temple, 76502 TX, USA
Jeffrey G. Arnold
Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory, USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Temple, 76502 TX, USA
now at: Blackland Research & Extension Center, Texas A&M Agrilife Research, Temple, 76502 TX, USA
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Jose P. Teran, Celray J. Chawanda, Albert Nkwasa, Inne Vanderkelen, Jeffrey G. Arnold, and Ann Van Griensven
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Global water models help us understand how human activities and climate change affect water resources. One of them is the CoSWAT Global Model. In this study we improved this model by adding a better representations of lakes, reservoirs, and irrigation demand. Evaluation shows these changes improve river flow simulation and enable explicit assessment of lake and reservoir water balances, producing a more robust tool for global freshwater studies.
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Limited monitoring data make it difficult to assess human impacts on freshwater quality, especially in low-income regions. To address this, we developed a global water quality model that simulates river nutrient loads (Total Nitrogen and Total Phosphorus). The model provides high-resolution insights into freshwater pollution, supporting ecological risk assessments and policy decisions. While some uncertainties remain, this model offers a crucial tool for addressing global water quality.
Celray James Chawanda, Albert Nkwasa, Wim Thiery, and Ann van Griensven
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Africa's water resources are being negatively impacted by climate change and land-use change. The SWAT+ hydrological model was used to simulate the hydrological cycle in Africa, and results show likely decreases in river flows in the Zambezi and Congo rivers and highest flows in the Niger River basins due to climate change. Land cover change had the biggest impact in the Congo River basin, emphasizing the importance of including land-use change in studies.
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Studies using agro-hydrological models, like the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), to map evapotranspiration (ET) do not account for cropping seasons. A comparison between the default SWAT+ set-up (with static land use representation) and a dynamic SWAT+ model set-up (with seasonal land use representation) is made by spatial mapping of the ET. The results show that ET with seasonal representation is closer to remote sensing estimates, giving better performance than ET with static land use.
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Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 71–89, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-71-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-71-2022, 2022
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We present an approach on how to incorporate crop phenology in a regional hydrological model using decision tables and global datasets of rainfed and irrigated cropland with the associated cropping calendar and management practices. Results indicate improved temporal patterns of leaf area index (LAI) and evapotranspiration (ET) simulations in comparison with remote sensing data. In addition, the improvement of the cropping season also helps to improve soil erosion estimates in cultivated areas.
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This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Geoscientific Model Development (GMD).
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Global water models help us understand how human activities and climate change affect water resources. One of them is the CoSWAT Global Model. In this study we improved this model by adding a better representations of lakes, reservoirs, and irrigation demand. Evaluation shows these changes improve river flow simulation and enable explicit assessment of lake and reservoir water balances, producing a more robust tool for global freshwater studies.
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We improved the widely used SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model to better predict how pesticides move through the environment. We added a new process that considers how plants take-up chemicals from the soil. Testing this updated model in two catchments showed very good prediction capabilities and a reduction of chemicals in river water by up to 17 % due to the plant uptake. The enhanced model offers a valuable tool for assessing the environmental impacts of agricultural management.
Katoria Lekarkar, Oldrich Rakovec, Rohini Kumar, Stefaan Dondeyne, and Ann van Griensven
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4526, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-4526, 2025
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Belgium has faced intense droughts in recent years, causing major losses across sectors. To assess their rarity, we used a hydrological model to reconstruct fifty years of soil moisture in the country. We show that 2011–2020 experienced the most severe droughts since 1971, with nearly 30 % of the decade under drought. We also show that rainfall-based indicators underestimate soil moisture droughts, so including soil moisture monitoring can give decision-makers a clearer picture of drought risks.
Ryan T. Bailey, Salam Abbas, Jeffrey G. Arnold, and Michael J. White
Geosci. Model Dev., 18, 5681–5697, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-5681-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-18-5681-2025, 2025
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Water managers often make use of computer models to assess a region's water supply under future conditions and management scenarios. This article introduces a new computer model that combines a land surface model (SWAT+) and a groundwater model (MODFLOW) and shows how it can be applied to managed, irrigated watersheds. This new model can be used for regions that rely on both surface water and groundwater for drinking water, agriculture, and industry.
Albert Nkwasa, Celray James Chawanda, Maria Theresa Nakkazi, and Ann van Griensven
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-703, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-703, 2025
Preprint archived
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Limited monitoring data make it difficult to assess human impacts on freshwater quality, especially in low-income regions. To address this, we developed a global water quality model that simulates river nutrient loads (Total Nitrogen and Total Phosphorus). The model provides high-resolution insights into freshwater pollution, supporting ecological risk assessments and policy decisions. While some uncertainties remain, this model offers a crucial tool for addressing global water quality.
Celray James Chawanda, Albert Nkwasa, Wim Thiery, and Ann van Griensven
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 117–138, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-117-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-117-2024, 2024
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Africa's water resources are being negatively impacted by climate change and land-use change. The SWAT+ hydrological model was used to simulate the hydrological cycle in Africa, and results show likely decreases in river flows in the Zambezi and Congo rivers and highest flows in the Niger River basins due to climate change. Land cover change had the biggest impact in the Congo River basin, emphasizing the importance of including land-use change in studies.
Joel Z. Harms, Julien J. Malard-Adam, Jan F. Adamowski, Ashutosh Sharma, and Albert Nkwasa
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 27, 1683–1693, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1683-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-27-1683-2023, 2023
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To facilitate the meaningful participation of stakeholders in water management, model choice is crucial. We show how system dynamics models (SDMs), which are very visual and stakeholder-friendly, can be automatically combined with physically based hydrological models that may be more appropriate for modelling the water processes of a human–water system. This allows building participatory SDMs with stakeholders and delegating hydrological components to an external hydrological model.
Anna Msigwa, Celray James Chawanda, Hans C. Komakech, Albert Nkwasa, and Ann van Griensven
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Studies using agro-hydrological models, like the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), to map evapotranspiration (ET) do not account for cropping seasons. A comparison between the default SWAT+ set-up (with static land use representation) and a dynamic SWAT+ model set-up (with seasonal land use representation) is made by spatial mapping of the ET. The results show that ET with seasonal representation is closer to remote sensing estimates, giving better performance than ET with static land use.
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Human-controlled reservoirs have a large influence on the global water cycle. However, dam operations are rarely represented in Earth system models. We implement and evaluate a widely used reservoir parametrization in a global river-routing model. Using observations of individual reservoirs, the reservoir scheme outperforms the natural lake scheme. However, both schemes show a similar performance due to biases in runoff timing and magnitude when using simulated runoff.
Estifanos Addisu Yimer, Ryan T. Bailey, Lise Leda Piepers, Jiri Nossent, and Ann van Griensven
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-169, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2022-169, 2022
Manuscript not accepted for further review
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A recently developed groundwater module (gwflow) coupled with the soil water assessment tool (SWAT+) is used to simulate the streamflow of the Dijle catchment, Belgium. The standalone model (SWAT+) resulted in unsatisfactory streamflow simulations while SWAT+gwflow produced streamflow that considerably mimics the measured river discharge. Furthermore, modifications to the gwflow module are made to account for the vital hydrological process (groundwater-soil profile interactions).
Albert Nkwasa, Celray James Chawanda, Jonas Jägermeyr, and Ann van Griensven
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 71–89, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-71-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-71-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
We present an approach on how to incorporate crop phenology in a regional hydrological model using decision tables and global datasets of rainfed and irrigated cropland with the associated cropping calendar and management practices. Results indicate improved temporal patterns of leaf area index (LAI) and evapotranspiration (ET) simulations in comparison with remote sensing data. In addition, the improvement of the cropping season also helps to improve soil erosion estimates in cultivated areas.
Alemu Yenehun, Mekete Dessie, Fenta Nigate, Ashebir Sewale Belay, Mulugeta Azeze, Marc Van Camp, Derbew Fenetie Taye, Desale Kidane, Enyew Adgo, Jan Nyssen, Ann van Griensven, and Kristine Walraevens
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-527, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-527, 2021
Manuscript not accepted for further review
Short summary
Short summary
Population growth, industrial expansion, and climate change are causing stress on the limited freshwater resources of the globe. Groundwater is one of the important freshwater resources. Hence, managing these limited resources is a key task for the sector experts. To do so, understanding recharge processes and its quantification is vital. In this study, three different methods using measured data are applied to estimate recharge and identify the controlling factors.
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Short summary
Water resources face more challenges from climate change and human activities. We improved global water modeling by developing a high-resolution system using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT+), using automated reproducible workflow. This approach simplifies tracking the progress of global impact assessment modelling efforts. The global model will further help assess water stress hot-spots and inform sustainable water management as further improvements come.
Water resources face more challenges from climate change and human activities. We improved...
