Effects of spatial and temporal weather data resolutions on streamflow modeling of a semi-arid basin, Northeast Brazil

One major difficulty in the application of distributed hydrological models is the availability of data with sufficient quantity and quality to perform an adequate evaluation of a watershed and to capture its dynamics. The Soil & Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used in this study to analyze the hydrologic responses to different sources, spatial scales, and temporal resolutions of weather inputs for the semi-arid Jaguaribe watershed in northeastern Brazil. Four different simulations were conducted, based on four groups of weather and precipitation inputs: Group 1: SWAT Weather Generator based on monthly data from four airport weather stations and daily data based on 124 local rain gauges; Group 2: daily local data from 14 weather stations and 124 precipitation gauges; Group 3: Daily values from a global coupled forecast model (NOAA's Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR)); and Group 4: CFSR data with 124 local precipitation gauges.