Evaluating the impacts of soil data on hydrological and nonpoint source pollution prediction

Soil data are one key input for most hydrological and nonpoint source (H/NPS) models, and quantifying the error transmission from soil data to H/NPS predictions is of great importance. In this study, two typical soil datasets were compared using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) in a typical mountainous watershed, the Three Gorges Reservoir Region, China. Besides, the effects of soil data resolution were evaluated, and the error transmission from soil data to watershed management strategy was assessed. The results indicate that model outputs are not sensitive to changes of soil data resolution but the choice of soil data greatly impacts the application of watershed models, in terms of the goodness-of-fit indicator, predicted data and related uncertainty. This soil data-induced error would be inevitably magnified from the flow simulation to the NPS prediction stage. This study could indicate that the choice of soil data will lead to significant differences in management schemes for specific pollution periods. These results provide information on the impacts of soil data on the functionality of watershed models and valuable information for the appropriateness of each soil database.