Simulation Daily Soil Water Under Foothills Fescue Grazing with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool Model (Alberta, Canada)

The soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) model was applied to simulate daily soil-water patterns in grazed foothills fescue grassland of southwestern Alberta, Canada. Natural and artificial barriers were put in place to create three small watersheds that were subjected to no grazing, heavy grazing, or very heavy grazing. Soil water measurements taken at four slope positions every 2 weeks from 1998-2000 for calibrating and evaluating the SWAT model. Reasonably good simulations were obtained, although the model had a tendency to overpredict soil water when soil was relatively dry and to underpredict soil water when soil was relatively wet. Sensitivity analysis results are summarized. Overall, the SWAT model gave satisfactory daily predictions for all three watersheds.