Evaluation of Soil Erosion in Small Mountainous Watersheds Using SWAT Model: A Case Study of the Woldong Catchment, Anseong

SWAT을 이용한 최상류 소유역 토양침식 평가: 안성 월동저수지 유역을 대상으로

Successful sediment management at the watershed scale requires an understanding of the erosion, transport and sedimentation processes at the specific site scale. However, studies on the sediment runoff characteristics in a small uppermost watershed, which serves as a sediment supply function, are very rare. Therefore, this study attempted to investigate the fluctuations in major sediment supply areas and sediment runoff in the uppermost mountain small watershed, and for this purpose, ArcSWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tools with GIS interface) was applied to the Woldong reservoir catchment located in Gosam-myeon, Anseong-si, Gyeonggi-do. The model results were manually calibrated using the monitoring data of the Woldong reservoir sedimentation rate from 2005 to 2007. It was estimated that annual average of 34.4 tons/year of sediment was discharged from the Woldong reservoir basin. This estimate almost coincided with the monitoring data of the Woldong reservoir during the low flow period but tended to be somewhat underestimated during the high flow period. Although the SWAT model does not fully reflect the erosion process of gully and in-channel, this underestimation is probably due to the spatial connectivity of sediment transport and the storage and reactivation of the sediment being transported. Most of the forested hillslopes with a well-developed organic horizon were evaluated as having a low risk of erosion, while the places with the highest risk of erosion were predicted to be distributed in the logged area with some weeds or shrubs (classified as pasture) with relatively steeper slopes, and in the bare land. The results of this study are expected to be useful in developing strategies for sediment control and reservoir management.