Environmental Modelling and Software 111 (2019) 493–497

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Environmental Modelling & Software

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsoft

A QGIS-based graphical user interface for application and evaluation of T

SWAT-MODFLOW models
Seonggyu Parka,∗, Anders Nielsenb, Ryan T. Baileya, Dennis Trolleb, Katrin Biegerc
a
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
b
Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, Vejlsøvej, Silkeborg, Denmark
c
Blackland Research & Extension Center, Texas A&M AgriLife, Temple, TX, United States

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This article presents QSWATMOD, a QGIS-based graphical user interface for application and evaluation of
SWAT-MODFLOW SWAT-MODFLOW models. QSWATMOD includes: (i) pre-processing modules to prepare input data for model
Graphical user interface execution, (ii) configuration modules for SWAT-MODFLOW options, and (iii) post-processing modules to view
QGIS and interpret model results. QSWATMOD, written in Python, creates linkage files between SWAT and
QSWATMOD
MODFLOW models, runs a simulation, and displays results within the open source Quantum Geographic
Information System (QGIS) environment. QSWATMOD is equipped with functionalities that assist in storing and
retrieving user and default configuration settings and parameter values, performing the linkage and simulation
processes, and uses various geo-processing functionalities (e.g., selection, intersection, union) of QGIS. The use
of QSWATMOD is demonstrated through an application to the 471 km2 Middle Bosque River Watershed in
central Texas. As the number of SWAT-MODFLOW users grows worldwide, QSWATMOD can be a valuable tool
to assist in creating and managing SWAT-MODFLOW projects.

1. Introduction facilitates preparing linkage files for a SWAT-MODFLOW model simu-

lation. The GUI, however, does not provide geographical context with
The shortage of freshwater supply due to population growth, land maps, does not allow linkage between SWAT and an existing MOD-
use and climate change has been recognized as one of the most critical FLOW model, and does not display results or compare model results
global issues in water resources engineering. Many techniques and with observation data.
methods have been developed to quantify water resources at the re- This article presents QSWATMOD, a QGIS-based GUI plugin that
gional scale, including large-scale watershed models. SWAT (Arnold links a SWAT model with a MODFLOW model within a geographical
et al., 1998) and MODFLOW (Harbaugh, 2005; Niswonger et al., 2011) information system (GIS) setting, thus facilitating model preparation
are two of the most widely used hydrologic models for this purpose and model results viewing for the broad SWAT and MODFLOW users.
(Wible, 2014). However, due to the deficiencies in SWAT and MOD- The linkage is based on the SWAT-MODFLOW modeling code of Bailey
FLOW for simulating groundwater hydrology and land surface hy- et al. (2016), in which MODFLOW-NWT (Niswonger et al., 2011) is
drology, respectively, several studies have linked these two models imbedded within the SWAT 2012 modeling code (Revision 591) to si-
(Sophocleous and Perkins, 2000; Kim et al., 2008; Guzman et al., 2015; mulate groundwater flow and groundwater-surface water interactions.
Bailey et al., 2016). These SWAT-MODFLOW models, however, and The availability of QSWATMOD allows coupled surface water/
coupled models in general, often are not used extensively due to the groundwater models to become more accessible to a broad hydrologic
level of complexity of preparing input data, configuring model options, modeling community, particularly since the tool is based on the free
executing models, and interpreting results (Barthel and Banzhaf, 2016; and open-source QGIS platform.
Nielsen et al., 2017). In particular, preparing input data for coupled The features and capabilities of QSWATMOD are demonstrated
hydrologic models often is a slow, tedious, and error-prone process. To through an application to the Middle Bosque River Watershed
save time and avoid errors, Bailey et al. (2017) developed SWATMOD- (471 km2) in the Texas-Gulf region of central Texas (Fig. 1), which has
Prep, a stand-alone Python-based graphical user interface (GUI) that major groundwater discharge and stream seepage areas (Cannata,

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Park), [email protected] (A. Nielsen), [email protected] (R.T. Bailey), [email protected] (D. Trolle),
[email protected] (K. Bieger).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2018.10.017
Received 7 August 2018; Received in revised form 8 October 2018; Accepted 27 October 2018
Available online 29 October 2018
1364-8152/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
S. Park et al. Environmental Modelling and Software 111 (2019) 493–497

Software availability Year First Available 2018

Cost Free
Name of Software QSWATMOD Programming Language Python
Developers Seonggyu Park and Anders Nielsen Software required QGIS
Contact Address Department of Civil and Environmental Availability Software (including SWAT-MODFLOW executable,
Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO and datasets for the Middle Bosque River Watershed) and
80523, United States documentation can be downloaded from https://swat.
Email [email protected] tamu.edu/software/swat-modflow/

Fig. 1. Map showing the location of the Middle Bosque River Watershed within McLennan, Bosque, and Coryell Counties, Texas. The outline of the watershed is the
extent of the SWAT and MODFLOW models.

1988). Subsurface geology consists of mainly sedimentary (limestone) settings, and a project directory, which holds all project inputs and
rocks (Cannata, 1988; Pearson, 2013), with two observation wells lo- outputs. Default user inputs and simulation settings are stored in a
cated near the river. The climate of the study area is characterized by designated SQLite (Hipp et al., 2015) project database. QSWATMOD
semi-arid conditions, with long hot summers and brief mild winters. includes plotting functions based on Matplotlib (Hunter, 2007). The
The annual precipitation between 1985 and 2012 ranges from 340 to tabs of QSWATMOD (Fig. 2) are “Pre-Processing”, “Simulation”, and
950 mm/year. Details of the SWAT and MODFLOW models are shown “Post-Processing”. All data processing is based on the pre-processing,
in Table 1. Results are compared with observed streamflow and configuration, and post-processing modules (see Fig. S1 in Supple-
groundwater head to demonstrate the viewing features of QSWATMOD. mentary Material).

2. Development and application of QSWATMOD 2.2. Pre-Processing tab

2.1. QSWATMOD overview and development The main role of the Pre-Processing tab is to guide users to specify
paths to the folders containing input files, prepare MODFLOW data, and
QSWATMOD is cross-platform compatible and implemented in the perform geo-processing routines to link the two models. Shapefiles for
open source QGIS platform. Documentation and a QSWATMOD in-
staller are available through http://swat.tamu.edu/software/swat- Table 1
modflow. QGIS must be installed on the system prior to the installa- Summary Characteristics of the SWAT and MODFLOW models.
tion of QSWATMOD. We recommend installing the latest “long term Model Characteristics Value Unit
release (LTR)” version of QGIS through OSgeo4W, a binary distribution
Watershed area 471 [km2]
of open source geospatial software (https://qgis.org). QSWATMOD has
Number of SWAT HRUs 6416 –
dependencies to third-party Python packages including FloPy3 (Bakker Number of SWAT Sub-basins 69 –
et al., 2016), Pandas (McKinney, 2010), OpenCV (Bradski, 2000), and Number of MODFLOW cells 19,176 –
pyshp. These packages will be installed automatically in the designated Number of MODFLOW layers 5 –
Python environment after QSWATMOD is activated in QGIS. QSWAT- MODFLOW grid cell size (m) 150 [m]
Number of MODFLOW River cells 1468 –
MOD has the option of creating a new project or opening a saved ex-
Range of Hydraulic Conductivity values 1e−4 – 300 [m day−1]
isting project from a previous session. A project consists of a QGIS file Range of Specific Yield 0.01–0.25 –
(*.qgs), which stores the information of QGIS status, loaded layers, user

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Fig. 2. (A) Main QSWATMOD GUI platform; (B) Pre-Processing Tab.

the river network, subbasins, and HRUs from an existing SWAT model (Fig. 2 and S2):
are required (Fig. 2b).
1) MODFLOW model files and grid shapefile are available;
2.2.1. SWAT inputs 2) MODFLOW model files are available but there is no grid shapefile;
QSWATMOD creates copies of all SWAT model input files and as- and
sociated GIS files (rasters, vectors) in the project folder once users 3) MODFLOW model has not yet been constructed.
specify the path to an existing SWAT model. The copied HRU, sub-
basin, and river network shapefiles are then imported to the QGIS The first option guides users to specify the path to an existing
canvas. These shapefiles are available with the original SWAT model MODFLOW model and MODFLOW grid shapefile, with the latter re-
created using either ArcSWAT (Olivera et al., 2006) or QSWAT (Dile quiring the same projection as the SWAT shapefiles. For the second
et al., 2016). option, the user specifies the coordinate of the North-West corner of the
MODFLOW boundary or the MODFLOW grid area is based on the extent
2.2.2. MODFLOW options of the SWAT subbasin shapefile, with both reading cell information
QSWATMOD provides the user with three options for MODFLOW (width, depth, top elevation) from the MODFLOW discretization file

Fig. 3. QSWATMOD interface for a) Simulation Tab; b) Configuration Settings (in “swatmf_link.txt” file).

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(*.dis). Through the third option, a simple MODFLOW model, powered DHRUs were created and 1468 river cells were identified to link with
by the FloPy3 (Bakker et al., 2016) package, can be developed with user the SWAT river network.
inputs of cell dimensions, river bed properties, and aquifer properties
(hydraulic conductivity, specific yield, specific storage) (Fig. S3). Lo- 2.3. Simulation tab
cations of observation wells can be established by an observation well
shapefile or through the user selecting cells on the QGIS canvas (Fig. In the “Simulation” tab (Fig. 3), starting date, ending date, warm-up
S4). period, and time step of the simulation are provided based on in-
formation in the SWAT input file “file.cio” and used for synchronizing
2.2.3. River connections the MODFLOW model time and writing simulation results. In the con-
Linking the cells in the MODFLOW River package with the SWAT figuration settings, users can activate SWAT-MODFLOW simulation
river network is required to simulate groundwater-surface water in- options, optional model output, and change the frequency of SWAT
teractions. QSWATMOD provides three options: 1) Use Only calls to MODFLOW. Finally, “Run Simulation” button is selected.
MODFLOW river package, 2) Use Only SWAT river network, and 3) Use
Both MODFLOW and SWAT (Fig. S5). For the first option, QSWATMOD 2.4. Post-processing tab
extracts river cell values (river stage, river bed conductance, river
bottom elevation) from the MODFLOW River package file. For the The Post-Processing tab and model results are shown in Fig. 4. The
second option, the MODFLOW grid cells are intersected with the SWAT tab facilitates mapping results within QGIS and displaying results dy-
river network shapefile and then river cell parameters for each river cell namically during the simulation run. QSWATMOD has three types of
are calculated based on information provided by the SWAT river net- post-processing modules: plotting, mapping, and exporting results. The
work (DEM, stream length and width) and user inputs (thickness and plot function shows observed and simulated hydrographs of streamflow
hydraulic conductivity of river bed material). For the third option, the and groundwater head, with objective function summary values (Nash-
existing MODFLOW river cells are compared to the SWAT river network Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE), Percent bias (PBIAS), and R-squared (R2))
(Fig. S5e) with the user deciding which information to keep. displayed on the figures (Fig. 4a and b). The mapping function is de-
signed to show maps of recharge (Fig. 4c) and groundwater head
2.2.4. Linking process (Fig. 4d) on the QGIS canvas via shapefiles. Figures showing spatial
Through the linking process (Fig. 2b), the HRUs are disaggregated patterns of surface water and groundwater interactions (Fig. 4e) can be
to create DHRUs, which are then intersected with MODFLOW grid cells. converted to a single video clip by selecting the “Save to Video” icon
MODFLOW river cells are identified using the SWAT stream network or (see Video S1 in Supplementary Material). The water balance chart is
other river connection options, and the set of river cells within each created using values of precipitation, surface runoff, lateral flow,
subbasin are identified for mapping groundwater-surface water ex- groundwater flow to streams, deep percolation to groundwater, soil
change rates from river cells to SWAT subbasin channels. These gen- water, seepage from streams to the aquifer, and groundwater volume
erated shapefiles are used to create the required SWAT-MODFLOW text from SWAT's “output.std” file. Except for spatially distributed ground-
linkage files. For the Middle Bosque model, the time required by water head and recharge values, users can export all results to text-
QSWATMOD to perform the linking operations on a standard desktop formatted files (see Figure S6).
computer is several minutes (see Table S1 for details). A total of 12,366 Supplementary video related to this article can be found at https://

Fig. 4. QSWATMOD interface for Post-processing tab, showing results from the Middle Bosque SWAT-MODFLOW simulation.

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