Progress 04/15/23 to 04/14/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Dr. Kalin and Dr. Yen (former Co-PI) co-hosted a session with Drs. Srinivasan and Engel a special session at the 2023 AGU Fall Meeting in San Fransico, CA, Dec 9-13, 2023, called "Advancement in Watershed Modeling: Agricultural Systems, Nutrient Balance, Carbon Cycling and Regulatory Science Implementations". The oral (8 presentations) and poster sessions (16) were well attended. Dr. Kalin taught two undergraduate-level courses and used material from this project. One was the Watershed Management Class (NATR-4240) in Spring 2024 (32 students). The class is about the importance of integrated watershed management and covers several related issues such as TMDL development, the role of watershed models, and their types. One of the lectures is specifically about the role and importance of wetlands in watershed management, and how they perform various ecosystem functions within watersheds. The course also covers non-point source pollution and how best management practices can help mitigate them. The second class was the freshman-level "Introduction to Geospatial Technologies". There were two specific lectures related to wetlands. One was about wetland delineation in the field, their mapping, and the national wetlands inventory. The second lecture was on using AI technology to identify potential wetland areas in the landscape. Changes/Problems:The transition from the research associate Dr. Isik to the TES worker was not the easiest, but eventually, it all worked out. We needed an extra year due to delays related to COVID-19 as well as due to the research associate leaving. We are granted one-year extension. We are on track to complete the project by mid-April, 2025. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The research associate and the PhD studentworking on this project attended and presented at AGU 2023 Congressheld at San Francisco, CA, USA in December 2023. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The PI and the research associate are members of the ASCE-EWRI Wetlands Hydrology Technical Community. Other members of the committee are updated on the coupled SWAT-WetQual model. Several of them have an interest in using it. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? The fully developed SWAT-WetQual model with modifications to the wetland module will be tested in the Fish River Watershed, AL, USA and Upper Choptank River watershed in MD, USA. A second version of SWAT-WetQual will be developed that replaces the pond module (.pnd) in SWAT-C with the wetQual model to allow for simulation of non-floodplain wetlands as well as the inter-connectivity between wetlands. The connectivity between non-floodplain wetlands will be integrated using methods described in Evenson et al. (2016) and the model will be tested in Tuckahoe watershed of MD, USA.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Accurate estimation of vertical and lateral fluxes of carbon from terrestrial landscapes is important as it is a major contributor of carbon in dissolved and particulate forms to inland water bodies including wetlands and streams. Accurate estimation of carbon is also important due to its influence in the N and P cycles of inland water bodies. The SWAT-C model that is being coupled to WetQual for improved simulation of wetlands and its influence in hydrology, water quality, and carbon transport at watershed-scale has been extensively assessed for simulation of terrestrial carbon fluxes in agricultural watersheds but has not been thoroughly evaluated in forested landscapes. We performed a study that evaluated SWAT-C for its simulation of vertical and lateral carbon fluxes from forested land use/land cover (LULC) by performing a case study in the Fish River Watershed of Alabama. The manuscript is currently being prepared for submission to the Journal of Environmental Management. Additional assessment of SWAT-WetQual loose coupling is being performed in the Fish River Watershed. This study builds on the previous loose coupling effort by evaluating the impacts of incorporating the wetQual model into SWAT at the watershed outlet. This study will also serve as a benchmark to debug errors in the hard coupled SWAT-WetQual model when applied at a watershed-scale. A manuscript from this study is being prepared. The hard coupling of the SWAT-C model with wetQual has been completed. This version of the SWAT-WetQual model replaced the default wetland module in the SWAT-C model with the wetQual model. This will allow for researchers to use the general wetland function in SWAT-C (one for each simulated subbasin) with improved algorithms from wetQual model to simulate wetlands at watershed-scale. This version of SWAT-WetQual will be helpful when running the model in very large watersheds. The SWAT-WetQual model has been rigorously tested using a single hypothetical case study watershed with one subbasin and one wetland. A manuscript from this study is being prepared for submission into the Journal of Environmental Modelling and Software.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Haas, H., Kalin, L., & Yen, H. (2024). Improved forest canopy evaporation leads to better predictions of ecohydrological processes. Ecological Modelling, 489, 110620.
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Isik, S., H. Haas, L. Kalin, M.M. Hantush, C. Nietch (2023), Nutrient Removal Potential of Headwater Wetlands in Coastal Plains of Alabama, USA , Water, 15, 2687. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15152687.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Lee, D., R. Karki, S. Isik, L. Kalin (2023), Improving the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) for better simulating wetlands by coupling it with a process-based wetland model: SWAT-WetQual , AGU Fall Meeting, San Fransisco, December 11-15.
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Progress 04/15/22 to 04/14/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Dr. Kalin and Dr. Yen (former Co-PI) co-hosted a session with Drs. Srinivasan and Engel a special session at the 2022 AGU Fall Meeting called "Advancements in Watershed Modeling: Hydrologic/WQ Processes and Management Implementations on Regulatory Science". The oral and poster sessions were very well attended. Dr. Kalin taught an undergraduate-level Watershed Management Class (NATR-4240) in Spring 2023 (27 students). The class is about the importance of integrated watershed management. One of the lectures is specifically about the role and importance of wetlands in watershed management, and how they perform various ecosystem functions within watersheds. The course also covers non-point source pollution and how best management practices can help mitigate them. Changes/Problems:The research associate, Dr. Sabahattin Isik decided to take another position. He notified Dr. Kalin in October 2022, and his last day was February 2023. After hisnotification, the project progressed very slowly. After Dr. Isik left, Dr. Kalin hired one of his former Ph.D. students as a TES worker (Dr. Ritesh Karki) to complete the work. Dr. Karki has a full-time job, and thus works on the projectpart-time. He has a deep knowledge of the SWAT source code, forest systems, and carbon simulations.Dr. Kalin has also movedone of his Ph.D. students to the project. The last months of Dr. Isik were busy with preparing transition documents, files, codes, etc.,and training the TES and the Ph.D. student. This was a significant step back in terms of progress, but now we are moving well. However, with these changes, we will have to ask for a one-year extension. The project start was already delayed due to COVID, and now with these personnel changes, another year beyond the regular project end date (which is April 14, 2024) will be needed. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The research associate working on the project attended several webinars and workshops: ESRI, Goodbye ArcMap: Moving Curriculum & Courses to Modern GIS, Sep 21, 2022. EPA, Water Quality Modeling Basics and Beyond, May 24, 2022. EPA, Processing gridded weather data in ArcGIS and Python, October 18, 2022. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Dr. Kalin gave a seminar and a workshop about SWAT and WetQual and their applications during his two Fulbright visits to Brazil in Summer and Fall of 2022. He used the Fish River watershed dataset during the workshop. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Results from the case study using SWAT-C in the Big River Watershed will be used to identify model initialization and parameterization using remote-sensed as well as observed data products. We will complete the coupling of SWAT-WetQual and perform the model evaluation in the test watersheds. Model results for the simulation of wetlands between the default (SWAT) and new wetland module (SWAT-WetQual) will be performed to evaluate the changes in model simulation of wetlands. The comparison between the fully coupled SWAT-WetQual and the loosely coupled WetQual (see #5 under What was accomplished) will also be performed to debug the coupled model. Additional modifications will be made to the SWAT-WetQual model that allows for improved representation (improved connectivity) and simulation of wetlands. The improved representation of wetlands will be accomplished using methods described in Evenson et al. (2016). The datasets required for model development as well as evaluation of the new SWAT-WetQual model in the test watersheds are currently being processed.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We have been working with a version of the SWAT modified based on Du et al (2020) for in-stream carbon transport. The model was tested at Greensboro Watershed in Maryland and the Big River Watershed in Alabama. However, the model can only simulate particulate and dissolved organic carbon. This was a limitation during the SWAT-WetQual coupling as more C species are needed by WetQual, and we had to make several assumptions. A new version of SWAT was developed by Dr. Xuesong Zhang from USDA-ARS and released in 2022 to better simulate carbon in watersheds. This version, called SWAT-C (https://sites.google.com/view/swat-carbon) can produce labile and refractory forms of particulate organic C (POC), dissolved organic C (DOC), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and algae, and perfectly aligns with WetQual's carbon module. Therefore, we decided to continue with SWAT-C. We are currently testing the SWAT-C for simulation of terrestrial and riverine carbon fluxes in the Big River Watershed in Alabama. The study is also evaluating the use of MODIS Net Primary Productivity - Carbon (NPP-C), Leaf Area Index (LAI), and Evapotranspiration (ET) remote-sensed data products along with available forest biomass data products for improved initialization and simulation of carbon sequestration and storage. This will be helpful to better constrain uncertainty in the SWAT-C simulation of terrestrial and riverine carbon fluxes. We have explored the available forest biomass data products from different sources (https://daac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/theme_dataset_lister.pl?theme_id=5) to improve forest initialization in the SWAT-C model for better representation of watershed initial conditions. The initialization of forest attributes spatially is often an overlooked concept in watershed models. This will be helpful to reduce model uncertainty in the simulation of forest carbon sequestration, storage, as well as losses. We improved the canopy interception of SWAT to better reflect ET. SWAT currently underestimates canopy interception, leading to an overestimation of transpiration and an underestimation of actual ET. To circumvent this, we implemented minor changes to the model's source code to better represent canopy interception for forests. This improvement not only impacts forest biomass but also indirectly affects sediment transport. A draft manuscript is in internal review. We started the process of coupling WetQual with the SWAT-C model. A decision was made to couple WetQual with the SWAT-C rather than the SWAT+ model at this step of model development as SWAT-C has a robust module for subsurface and riverine carbon simulation which will be necessary for improved water quality simulation in wetlands. The SWAT-WetQual model is being developed such that the user will have the opportunity to switch between the default and new wetland module in SWAT-C. The new SWAT-WetQual model will also print additional outputs relating to the WetQual module. We successfully implemented the loose coupling of SWAT-WetQual in the Upper Fish River Watershed (UFRW) to understand the role of headwater wetlands by considering uncertainty. We estimated removal efficiencies of 51-61% and 5-10% for nitrate and phosphate, respectively, in the UFRW. The calculated nutrient load removals are highly correlated with the input loads. We found that flashiness (flow pulsing) and baseflow index (fraction of inflow that is coming from baseflow) have a strong effect on nitrate removal, but not on phosphate removal. A manuscript on this is under review (special issue in Water about Wetland Processes and Modeling).
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Haas, H., L. Kalin (2022). Investigating the impacts of longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) restoration on water quantity and quality in the Mobile River Basin-AL". Presented at the 2022 Alabama Water Resources Conference & Symposium, Orange Beach - AL, USA, Sept. 7-9, 2022.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Costa, A.F.B., L. Kalin, S. Isik (2022), Carbon Dynamics in Headwater Wetlands of the Weeks Bay Watershed , Alabama Water Resources Conference, Orange Beach/Alabama, September 6-8.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Isik, S., L. Kalin, H. Haas, X. Du (2022), Modeling Organic Carbon Loading with the Soil Water Assessment Tool: Application to the Big Creek Watershed , Alabama Water Resources Conference, Perdido Bay, AL, September 8-10.
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Progress 04/15/21 to 04/14/22
Outputs
Target Audience:Dr. Kalin gave a seminar about WetQual and a workshop about the use of WetQual and its GUI during his visit to the Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil in December 2021. Dr. Kalin taught a graduate-level Watershed Modeling class (NATR-7560) in Spring 2022 (8 students). In that class, he taught the importance of representing forested ecosystems in SWAT in forest-dominated watersheds. He had a lab assignment on this. He also used the Fish River watershed, which is one of the test watersheds in this project, as a case study in the class. Dr. Kalin taught an undergraduate-level Watershed Management Class (NATR-4240) in Spring 2022. One of the lectures was specifically about the role and importance of wetlands in watershed management. Changes/Problems:Due to COVID, we still could not manage to visit Dr. Arnold in Temple, TX, to sit down with him and work on the SWAT+ code. We hope to visit him in the Fall. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The research associate working on the projectattended several webinars and workshops: 1) NASA Applied Remote Sensing Training Program - Using Google Earth Engine for Land Monitoring Applications (June 16, 23, & 30, 2021). 2) The Association of Clean Water Administrators (ACWA) Virtual 2021 Modeling Workshop (September 20-22, 2021). 3) NASA Climate Change Monitoring and Impacts Using Remote Sensing and Modeled Data (September 29, 2021). 4) NASA Climate Change Future Scenarios, Impact Projection, and Adaptation (October 6, 2021). A new Ph.D. student hired by Dr. Kalin received WetQual training and used the Fish River watershed system and the wetlands in it in a class project to explore the role of headwater wetlands in carbon sequestration. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Dr. Kalin gave a seminar about WetQual and its applications during his visit to Brazil in December 2021. He presented some of the results in the Fish River watershed during his seminar. He followed up the seminarwith a free workshop on WetQualto the interested parties. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?1. We will continue to test the SWAT-Carbon model in other watersheds which have available organic-C data. 2. We will continue testing the improvement of forest dynamics in our study wetlands. 3. We plan to finish the improvement of non-floodplain wetland hydrology in the SWAT model. 4. We will continue exploring the SWAT+ Fortran code and its connections to the wetland model at HRU, subbasin, and reach levels.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We continued to modify the SWAT model to meet our objectives. We adapted the in-stream organic carbon model developed for SWAT by Du et al (2020). We compiled the new SWAT-Carbon source code and successfully tested it at Greensboro Watershed in Maryland and the Big River Watershed in Alabama. We parameterized the SWAT model parameters for loblolly pine and slash pine, which are the two dominant evergreen forest species in Southeast US, based on Haas et al (2022). We further updated the SWAT plant database for these species using the Conterminous U.S. Forest Biomass (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2007.08.021) and the Forest Types (https://doi.org/10.14358/PERS.74.11.1379) maps. To demonstrate the modifications in the proposed tasks in Objective 1 and 2, respectively, we predicted total organic carbon (TOC) in the Big River watershed in Southern Alabama (dominated by forest and agriculture) by utilizing the SWAT-Carbon model and the improved representation of forest dynamics. The results will be presented at the 2022Alabama Water Resources Conference. We are working on a manuscript to publish this work. We modified the vegetation dynamics in WetQual and successfully tested them in a restored wetland in Maryland. We also collaborated with Dr. Evenson to adopt his the methodology described in Evenson et al. (2016) for the representation of non-floodplain wetlands in SWAT. Their methodology includes: (1) redefining SWAT model's HRU spatial boundaries to conform to the study area's Geographically isolated wetlands (GIWs) and associated catchment area boundaries; (2) constructing a series of new SWAT model input files to direct the simulation of GIW fill-spill hydrology and upland flows to GIWs; and (3) modifying the model source code to facilitate the use of the new SWAT input files and improve GIW water balance simulations. Dr. Evenson shared his SWAT code modifications along with the associated Python scripts required for GIS data processing. We are currently studying those codes. We wrote a script that loosely couples SWAT and WetQual. The script automates multiple processes of reading, computing, and writing from SWAT outputs to compatible WetQual inputs, and then converts nutrient loads from SWAT's reach output file (output.rch) to concentrations to be used as inputs in WetQual. The script also runs the flow routing subroutine and WetQual model simulations. This loose coupling script, written in Fortran, will be helpful during the full SWAT-WetQual coupling (both models are written in Fortran). We quantified reductions in nitrate and phosphate loadings provided by 44 wetland complexes within the Upper Fish River watershed in coastal Alabama using this script. We are working on a manuscript.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Haas, H., Kalin, L. and Srivastava, P., 2022. Improved forest dynamics leads to better hydrological predictions in watershed modeling. Science of The Total Environment, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153180
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Isik, S., Kalin, L., H., Haas, M. Hantush., 2021. Quantifying Nutrient Reductions at Wetlands in the Upper Fish River Watershed, 2021 Alabama Water Resources Conference, Perdido Bay, AL Sep 8-10, 2021.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Kalin, L., He, J., Hantush, M. Isik, S., 2021. Modeling Nutrient Dynamics in Wetlands Undergoing Wetting/Drying Cycles, 2021 Alabama Water Resources Conference, Perdido Bay, AL Sep 8-10, 2021.
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Progress 04/15/20 to 04/14/21
Outputs
Target Audience:
Nothing Reported
Changes/Problems:We were planning to start the project by visiting Dr. Arnold at the USDA-ARSlab in Temple, TX. Because of COVID w couldn't do that. We are still waiting for the travel. We also had travel plans to the sites in Maryland for data. Those travel couldn't happen either. Last, but not least, the research associate who was supposed to work on this project couldn't start immediately. Because of COVID, his start was delayed. Because of the delay in travel to the USDA-ARS lab, we decided to start working with SWAT-WetQual at this stage, instead of SWAT+. SWAT+ is still not fully tested for N, P, and sediment, whereas SWAT is fully tested. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Dr. Kalin, Dr. Yen, Dr. Isik, and a graduate student attended an online training Zoom meeting aboutCarbon modeling which was presented by Dr. Xinzhong Du. Dr. Du explained the Carbon module they have and how relatively less used variables/parameters are allocated to new parameters in SWAT for model calibration. Dr. Kalin taught a graduate-level Watershed Modeling class in Spring 2020 (virtual). In that class, he taught the importance of representing forested ecosystems in SWAT in forest-dominated watersheds. He had lab assignments on this. Dr. Isik has attended an online workshop where Co-PI Dr. Arnold explained SWAT+ Fortran code and structure. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?1. We will continue working with Dr. Du to first test his model in our study watersheds for organic-C, and then work with him to add DIC transport component. 2. We plan to make some changes in the source code of SWAT to better represent forest LAI dynamics and biomass. 3. We plan to finish testing the new vegetation component of WetQual. 4. We will continue exploring the SWAT+ Fortran code and its connections to the wetland model at HRU, subbasin, and reach levels. We will also work on associating similar variables in SWAT and WetQual and how we can modify the input files and the source code for fusing them.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1. We decided to start with SWAT, the water quality module of which is proven. We will later adapt it to SWAT+. We studied the in-stream organic carbon model developed for SWAT by Du et al (2020). We are collaborating with Dr. Du to further improve that model for DIC and incorporate it into SWAT. 2. We parameterized the SWAT model parameters for loblolly pine and slash pine, which are two common forest species in Southeast US. We used site level and remote sensing data for this. 3. We modified some of the vegetations dynamics in WetQual. We are currently testing them. 4. We received the source code of SWAT+ and studied it. We had one Zoom meeting with Dr. Arnold where he broadly went over the SWAT+ structure. We are looking forward to visiting his lab in Temple, TX to learn the source code.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Haas, H., S. Isik, L. Kalin, M. Hantush, 2020, Understanding the importance of wetland ecosystems for water quality and quantity in a coastal watershed, 2020 Bays and Bayous Symposium, Virtual Event, Mobile, AL Dec 1-3, 2020
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