Modelling water flow in a complex watershed in humid a tropical area using SWAT: a case study of Taabo watershed in Ivory Coast

International audienceUnderstanding the water balance of a basin is the most important aspect in water resourcesdevelopment and management programmes. The objective of this study was to implement anagro-hydrological model (SWAT) to model water flow transport within the river network with aperspective to reduce the sedimentation and eutrophication of lakes in Ivory Coast. The dailysimulation of SWAT model carried out in the period from 1979 to 1990 has been divided intowarm-up (1979–1981), calibration (1982–1986) and validation (1987–1990). For calibrating themodel, a preliminary sensitivity and uncertainty analysis in the SUFI-2 algorithm was performedbased on 19 hydrologic parameters. The model has given good results of performance androbustness. All statistical parameters (Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient (NS) and the coefficient ofdetermination (R2)) used to achieve the model performance of above 0.7 for the calibration periodand around 0.6 for the validation period. As for the uncertainty criteria (P-factor and R-factor), theobservation data are very good in general because more than 80% are bracketed by the 95PPUboth for calibration and validation periods. Graphically, the streamflow predictions match well withactual measurements. Water transfers between the soil, surface water, groundwater andatmosphere are largely conditioned by the uneven spatial distribution of pedology, land use andclimate