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ARS Home » Northeast Area » University Park, Pennsylvania » Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #370399
Research Project: Sustainable Intensification of Crop and Integrated Crop-Livestock Systems at Multiple Scales

Location: Pasture Systems & Watershed Management Research

Title: Application of the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) at the field-scale: categorizing methods and review of applications

Author
item KARKI, RITESH - University Of Auburn
item SRIVASTAVA, PUNEET - University Of Auburn
item Veith, Tameria

Submitted to: Transactions of the ASABE
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/11/2019
Publication Date: 12/31/2019
Citation: Karki, R., Srivastava, P., Veith, T.L. 2019. Application of the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) at the field-scale: categorizing methods and review of applications. Transactions of the ASABE. 63(2):513-522. doi:10.13031/trans.13545

Interpretive Summary: Watershed-scale simulation models, such as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), are used to study the impact of agricultural management practices on water quality within the watershed and at the watershed outlet. Although agricultural management happens by the farmer or land owner at the field level, access to field-level management over multiple years is typically hard to obtain for the watershed-scale researcher. Additionally, use of such fine-scale data can introduce a number of complexities into research projects for multiple-farm watersheds. As a result, researchers have developed several unique methods to represent field-scale management in SWAT simulations. We grouped these methods into five categories and used examples from the literature to demonstrate the key features of each category. Also, we discuss limitations, advantages, and future research potentials of each category in an effort to provide a solid launching point for future research as crop and management information becomes more available through internet gateways and easier to import into simulation models.

Technical Abstract: Although the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) has been widely used as a watershed/basin scale model, recently, there has been considerable interest in applying it at the field-scale, especially for the evaluation of best management practices, and for building stakeholder confidence. For this study, a thorough review of literature on the field-scale application of SWAT was conducted. It was determined that there are multiple ways of setting up the field-scale SWAT model depending on the spatial scale of the research as well as the research question being answered. This paper provides a detailed literature review of the methods used for field-scale SWAT modeling along with the summary of applications. The paper also discusses the limitations and advantages of each method along with the future research needs. The overarching goal of this paper was to provide a valuable and time-conserving resource to future researchers interested in field-scale SWAT modeling.