Incorporating landslide erosion into the SWAT for modeling suspended sediment discharge from snowmelt-dependent watersheds in northern Japan

Abstract:

Landslide erosion is a key driver of sediment yield at the watershed scale. In snowy cold region, landslide is active especially in snowmelt season, leading to increase in lateral erosion during snowmelt floods. Then, snowmelt flood in spring season is crucial for water, sediment and nutrient cycles from mountain to coast. Common hydrological models such as SWAT and WEPP are useful tools to evaluate and/or predict hydrology and sediment dynamics at watershed scale in snowy cold region, but not include the landslide erosion process. To develop the SWAT model for modeling water and suspended sediment discharge in snowmelt-dependent watersheds, we investigated the suspended sediment yield using fingerprinting technique, and correlated with landslide distribution using GIS. Suspended sediment yield was determined and found to be varied with each lithological group in the watersheds, showing the highest sediment yield in the metamorphic rock area represented by serpentine rock. From this result, the suspended sediment yield at sub-basin scale was estimated according to the geological composition and correlated with landslide density. The correlation analysis showed that the suspended sediment yield increases in respond to the landslide area along the stream channel. To incorporate the landslide erosion process into the SWAT model, the parameter associated with channel bank erosion was weighted with landslide density along main channel, assuming the lateral erosion as a key driver of landslide erosion. In result of calibration for sediment discharge, the Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient was improved for the landslide-incorporated model from for the model with default parameter set.