Streamflow Estimation Using SWAT Model Over Seonath River Basin, Chhattisgarh, India

Water availability is one of the major issues that need attention from the present generation across the whole world to attain sustainability. Spatial variation of water resources and further climatic changes are main reasons for extremes such as droughts and floods. This urges for the quantification and forecasting of availability of the basic need of life. At the river basin level, streamflow is considered as the most crucial parameter to assess water availability, which can be estimated by simulation or modelling approaches. This article presents about the hydrological modelling using a semi-distributed model, namely soil and water assessment tool (SWAT), applied to Seonath river basin, Chhattisgarh, India. The climate forecasting system reanalysis (CFSR) meteorological data for the period of 1979-2014 (35 years) is used and the runoff is generated, which is calibrated using the observed flow at the basin outlet. The results reveal the observed flow and modelled flow to be very poorly correlated. The major causes of such mismatch are identified, and possible improvement options are discussed.