Assessment of Water Quality Calibration Criteria for Field-Scale Water Quality Model

Abstract

The objective of this study was to assess the statistics and associated criteria for field-scale model used to simulate nutrient concentrations in paddy field. CREAMS-PADDY, a modified version of the field-scale CREAMS model, simulates the hydrologic, sediment, and nutrient cycles in paddy fields was applied in this study. The model was calibrated and validated using data from study rice paddy fields in Republic of Korea. The calibration statistics include mean and the minimum-maximum range associated with a “temporal window” that spans a period of several days. Because nutrient concentrations in paddy filed are typically sampled infrequently (on a weekly basis, at best) and represent only an instant in time, it is not reasonable to expect any model to simulate a daily average concentration equal to an observed value on a particular day. The 5-day window and related calibration statistics were applied in this study and the applicability of this concept was tested for field-scale water quality model. As a result of calibration and validation, the ponded water nutrient concentration values showed only small changes except the fertilization period. Because of the small changes in ponded water concentration, the size of 5-day window was too small to capture the observed values. Further study is required to establish the 5-day window calibration method for field-scale water quality modeling.