Evaluating the Performance of APEX-PADDY Model using the Monitoring Data of Paddy Fields in South Korea

Abstract

The APEX model has been developed for assessing agricultural management efforts and their effects on soil and water at the field scale as well asmore complex multi-subarea landscapes, whole farms, and watersheds. Recently, a key component of APEX application, named APEX-Paddy, hasbeen modified for simulating water quality by considering paddy rice management practices. In this study, the performance of the APEX-Paddy modelwas evaluated using field data at Iksan experimental paddy sites in Korea. The discharge and pollutant load data during 2013 and 2014 were usedto both manually and automatically calibrate the model. The APEX auto-calibration tool (APEX-CUTE 4.1) was used for model calibration andsensitivity analysis. Results indicate that APEX-Paddy reasonably performs in predicting runoff discharge rate and nitrogen yield. However, sedimentand phosphorus yield is not correctly predicted due to the limitation of model schemes. With APEX-Paddy, the performance in reproducing thedischarge and nitrogen yield is found to be a satisfactory level after manual calibration. The manually calibrated model performed better than theautomatically calibrated model in nearly all comparisons. For runoff, manual calibration reduced PBIAS while R2 and NSE values of the automaticallycalibrated model were the same as the manual calibration. For T-N, NSE and PBIAS were reduced when using manual calibration, whereas R2 valuewas the same as manual calibration. The limitation of the APEX-Paddy model for predicting sediment, as well as the phosphorous yield, was discussedin this study.