Modeling a Reservoir in Arid Regions; Case of Abdelmoumen Dam, Souss Watershed Morocco

Water plays a very important role in the socio-economic development of the country and if its shortage endures, that may affect the country' seconomy, particularity the agriculture, a big user of water. For this purpose, water management aims to find the right equilibrium between resources and usage. The objective of this work is to understand and model the hydrological functioning of the Issen basin arid watershed by focusing on the realism of simulated intermediate process. SWAT modeling performance are widely illustrated and discussed. A satisfactory return of the hydrograph is possible. Therefore, we have a representative precipitation distribution of the entire basin. However, a correct return flow does not guarantee a realistic simulation of intermediate processes of the hydrological cycle. In this modeling, we used the hydrometric data from 2007 to 2015 for calibration and validation period. Obtained results are widely satisfactory with 0.74 as value of Nash coefficient. The swat model performance criteria show the ability of this model to reproduce faithfully the hydrological behavior of the Issen basin.