Simulation of sediment transport in catchment using ArcSWAT 2005 dynamic erosion model exemplified by the catchment of the Ostravice river

Abstract

Soil is one of the most important natural sources on earth. The same way as all parts of the environment, and the global ecosystem generally, it suffers from several kinds of human activities in the landscape. One of the most serious environmental problems of our present days is accelerated soil erosion and related processes. In the past, the most of soil erosion studies and researches took place in the field, on experimental plots or in laboratories. The problem of these studies is the fact that they take quite a long time and are expensive. Nowadays, in the age of computers and information technologies, the soil erosion and sediment transport studies can be managed by new effective tools – numerical models. There are lots of numerical models being able to solve several tasks in the field of soil erosion and sediments. One of the most complex numerical models is the SWAT model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool). This physically based semi-distributed model can be used to analyze the complex watershed management and soil erosion, and sediment transport is only a fraction of the tools offered by the model. The main goal of this contribution is to introduce the basic abilities of the model as a tool of soil erosion analyses and sediment transport in watersheds.