Assessment of Sediment and Pollutants in Buyo Lake, Ivory Coast, Using SWAT （Soil and Water Assessment Tool） Model

The changes in land use in the last 30 years in the territory of agro-forest watershed of Lake Buyo resulted in significant sediment into the lake. Sediments are a preferred means of transportation for certain pollutants, like phosphorus in excess. By mapping the source areas of erosion, the authors can determine the risk areas and help to prioritize interventions in the territory. This mapping is done using the SWAT （soil and water assessment tool） model. Several types of data, including topography, land use, soil and climate data are needed to run the model. In this paper, all different steps are presented, from the designing of HRU （hydrological response units）, basic units to run the SWAT model until the simulations. The establishment of HRU has three main stages： space discretization, land use and soil data integration and HRU distribution： （1） space discretization which consist in extracting the limits and the water network of the watershed from the DEM （digital elevation model） and in subdividing them into sub-basins; （2） land use and soil data integration： it consists in digitizing the physical maps of land use and of soils under Mapinfo 7.5 and in keeping them in ＂shape＂ format; （3） HRU distribution： it leads to subdivide the sub-watersheds in small units that combine a single soil type and one type of land use. It appears from this study to obtain 23 sub-watersheds and 71 HRU. Once the HRU designed, it is necessary to integrate climate data, data on physico-chemical characteristics of soils and agricultural practices, before starting the simulations. This will allow the model to assess the risk of sedimentation and eutrophication of the lake using the MUSLE （modified universal soil loss equation） and phosphorus cycle.