Abstract:
Understanding the hydrological behavior of a watershed is essential in order to
consider rational and sustainable management measures for water resources. Generally,
several components of the water balance are not easily measurable and the use of modeling is
often necessary. However, the SWAT 2012 model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) is a
very effective tool in the field of hydrological modeling. Thus, we used the latter to assess its
ability to represent the functioning of the Lower Cheliff watershed, located in the north-west
of Algeria and is part of the large Chéliff basin.
In this thesis, we have attempted to assess and develop the groundwater resources of
the Lower Cheliff Basin, and address the lack of understanding of the hydrographic
framework and the temporal and spatial distribution of precipitation in the region. To do this
we used the SWAT 2012 model; this has enabled us to manipulate and analyze numerous
hydrological and agronomic data in order to predict the effects of land management on water
resources.
The results are quite satisfactory, the calibration of the model through the various
simulations with ten (10) parameters, made it possible to reproduce the flow hydrographs
recorded at the outlet of the basin during the period 2005-2011. The model's evaluation
criteria yielded very encouraging values (NS = 68% and R2 = 0.73).
