Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS, CALIBRATION AND VALIDATION OFSWAT MODEL FOR THE LOWER MAHANADI RIVER BASIN

Mithlesh Kumar, A.P. Sahu1, J. C. Paul and Lokesh Kumar Tinde

Abstract

Hydrological models are becoming a fundamental tool for natural resource planning and management;however, their application is hampered by a lack of data for calibration and validation. Therefore, the aimof this study is to calibrate and validate the SWAT model in the Lower Mahanadi river basin. The SWATCUPwas used for sensitivity analysis, calibration and validation of the model. Based on the sensitivityanalysis, twelve parameters were calibrated by the SWAT-CUP. The model performance indicators (R2,NSE and PBIAS) showed satisfactory results with 0.76, 0.78 and 6.6 during calibration and 0.79, 0.74 and 7.8during validation, respectively.