Sediment Yield Modeling of Dedissa Sub Basin, Abay Basin, South-Western Ethiopia

Abstract

The effects of land use land cover change have an impact on sediment yield on the Dedissa sun basin. The study mainly focused on predicting the amount of sediment yield and stream flow of the sub basin. A physical-based, semi-distributed hydrological model, SWAT was used to simulate hydrological response (sediment and stream flow) of Didessa sub-basin. The simulated Stream flow and sediment yield results were utilized to analyze seasonal variability of sediment and stream flow of the sub basin. The performance of SWAT model was evaluated through sensitivity analysis, calibration, and validation. Both the calibration and validation result shows good agreement between observed and simulated stream flow and sediment yield. Sensitivity analysis using the SWAT model has pointed out some crucial parameters that control the stream flow and sediment yield in the catchment. The model evaluation statistics of sediment yield prediction and stream flow gave good result with NSE and R² values having greater than 0.7 for the calibration and validation of the model. Therefore, SWAT model is good predictor of stream flow and sediment yield for Dedissa sub basin.

Keywords: SWAT, Dedissa sub basin, sediment Yield