An Approach to the Model use for Measuring Suspended Sediment Yield in Ungauged Catchments

Abstract

Different types of water resources studies require the information of Suspended Sediment Yield (SSY) in different time resolutions. In ungauged watersheds where hydrometeorogical time series are not available, the mean annual SSY (SSY_a) is solely predictable and catchment area is traditionally used as the predictor because it is the most important variable and generally determined during project planning. Firstly, this research tried to advance the traditional SSY_a model by additionally associating global topographic data. Based on the jack-knife procedure, the modified method considering catchment area with slope greater than 15% was evaluated in 17 gauged catchments in the Lower Mekong Basin and the overall predictive accuracy was improved about 66% in term of mean absolute percentage error. Secondly, the predicted SSY_a in each modeled catchment was monthly distributed using Unit mean annual Sedimentograph (USG_a). The double-average USG_a superior to the single-average one provides overall better quality results than the regionalized USG_a dependent upon the spatial proximity approach. The model performance measured by Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) is about 0.66 in median value and satisfactory results (NSE >0.50) are obtained in 11 catchments. Lastly, the validated regional model was regarded as a potential and feasible tool in solving sediment-ungauged issues in the basin.