Evaluation of Watershed Scale Aquatic Ecosystem Health by SWAT Modeling and Random Forest Technique

So Young Woo, Chung Gil Jung, Ji Wan Lee and Seong Joon Kim
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So Young Woo: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University, 120 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05029, Korea
Chung Gil Jung: Agricultural and Water Resources Engineering, Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center at El Paso, 1380 A&M Circle, El Paso, TX 79927-5020, USA
Ji Wan Lee: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University, 120 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05029, Korea
Seong Joon Kim: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering, Konkuk University, 120 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05029, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-15

Abstract: In this study, we evaluated the aquatic ecosystem health (AEH) with five grades (A; very good to E; very poor) of FAI (Fish Assessment Index), TDI (Trophic Diatom Index), and BMI (Benthic Macroinvertebrate Index) using the results of SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) stream water temperature (WT) and quality (T-N, T-P, NH 4 , NO 3 , and PO 4 ). By applying Random Forest, one of the machine learning algorithms for classification analysis, each AEH index was trained and graded from the SWAT results. For Han river watershed (34,418 km 2 ) in South Korea, the 8 years (2008~2015) observed AEH data of Spring and Fall periods at 86 locations from NAEMP (National Aquatic Ecological Monitoring Program) were used. The AEH was separately trained for Spring (FAI s , TDI s , and BMI s ) and Fall (FAI a , TDI a , and BMI a ), and the AEH results of Random Forest with SWAT (WT, T-N, T-P, NH 4 , NO 3 , and PO 4 ) as input variables showed the accuracy of 0.42, 0.48, 0.62, 0.45, 0.4, and 0.58, respectively. The reason for low accuracy was from the weak strength of the individual trees and high correlation between the trees composing the Random Forest due to the data imbalance. The AEH distribution results showed that the number of Grade A of total FAI, TDI, and BMI were 84, 0, and 158 respectively and they were mostly located at the upstream watersheds. The number of Grade E of total FAI, TDI, and BMI were 4, 50, and 13 and they were shown at downstream watersheds.

Keywords: Aquatic Ecosystem Health; Fish Assessment Index; Trophic Diatom Index; Benthic Macroinvertebrate Index; SWAT; Random Forest (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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