My river basin for rainfall runoff simulation i m planning to do in arcswat is 25K sq km in area. my query is that I have an i3 processor(1.8 ghz) and 4gb ram. Will these specifications be enough for SWAT to function well or should i go for a smaller basin? I am new to SWAT someone please answer
No, You can run the model for 25K sq km but it take more time.
my suggestion is you should go with sub-basin.
your PC specifications are good to run the SWAT model.
General limitations of SWAT modal are as given below:
- Spatial representation of HRUs ignores pollutant routing within a sub-watershed
- Model formulas are empirical
- Not applicable for 2D or 3D hydraulics applications
- Limited snowmelt model
- Erosion and sediment transport is limited
In addition of general limitation of SWAT model, if you reduce your basin area in to sub basin then you will get better results. I found maxi study area were upto 20 k sq km.. but I will suggest , you divide in to smaller area then results will be better.
Hello Kushal Pokhrel ,
You can run the SWAT model with your current computer specifications. However, it might take time to run. In my case, to run easily SWAT on my PC, I increased the RAM of my PC from 4Gb to 8Gb to speed up the model run.
I hope this helps.
You can run SWAT model and your area will work but it will take time because of your PC‘s processor and RAM capacity. it will also take time because there will be processing of a bunch of data Since your study area is large.
Best if your study area is greater than 100 square kilometer. To understand the detail of your study area it is preferable to delineate your study area into many sub-basins and too large area may take time especially during calibration and validation.
The area of watershed 25,000Km2 is not too large for rainfall runoff simulation.
if for land use land cover analysis it is too large.
Hi Kushal,
Indeed the size of your river basin is not too large. For instance the SWAT model has been used to simulate the hydrological behavior of the Yellow River basin in China with a size of approximately 750 000 km2 and subdivided into 31 sub-basins.
It is important to carefully consider the number of sub-basins. This number is dependent on the river network and geometry of the basin, but also on the availability of hydrometric stations where water levels and/ or discharge values are measured. A large number of sub-basins in combination with a limited number of discharge stations will make it difficult to carry out a sensible and robust calibration and validation, since model parameters for individual sub-basins can hardly be estimated. Hence, use the river geometry to divide your basin into a reasonable (small) number of sub-basins taking data availability into account.
Good luck,
Martijn
Hi Kushal,
From my experience, SWAT can handle a higher size watershed area than 25 km2 and about your computer specification, it would be better if you could upgrade with more RAM and processing as It will take lots of time with your specification.
Not only think about processor and RAM but also think about PC's Hard disk, the reading and writing speed of harddisk has a noticeable impact.
If I was you and my study area is very big and my computer power is lower, in that case, I would use a lower resolution of DEM, LU, and Soil map.
Your study area is 25 sqkm, you can proceed it with QSWAT easily. Refer SWAT Manual available on offical SWAT website. (PC Configuration is sufficient for your study)
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