Coupling SWAT and ANN models for enhanced daily streamflow prediction

•A coupled SWAT–ANN model was developed for flow prediction in ungauged catchments.•Separate predictive models were developed for cool and warm seasons.•As the % forest in a test watershed increased, the model performances decreased.•As the size of the test watershed increased, the model performances decreased.•Coupling ANN and SWAT improved daily flow predictions. To improve daily flow prediction in unmonitored watersheds a hybrid model was developed by combining a quasi‐distributed watershed model and artificial neural network (ANN). Daily streamflow data from 29 nearby watersheds in and around the city of Atlanta, Southeastern United States, with leave-one-site-out jackknifing technique were used to build the flow predictive models during warm and cool seasons. Daily streamflow was first simulated with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and then the SWAT simulated baseflow and stormflow were used as inputs to ANN. Out of the total 29 test watersheds, 62% and 83% of them had Nash–Sutcliffe values above 0.50 during the cool and warm seasons, respectively (considered good or better). As the percent forest cover or the size of test watershed increased, the performances of the models gradually decreased during both warm and cool seasons. This indicates that the developed models work better in urbanized watersheds. In addition, SWAT and SWAT Calibration Uncertainty Procedure (SWAT-CUP) program were run separately for each station to compare the flow prediction accuracy of the hybrid approach to SWAT. Only 31% of the sites during the calibration and 34% of validation runs had ENASH values ⩾0.50. This study showed that coupling ANN with semi-distributed models can lead to improved daily streamflow predictions in ungauged watersheds.