Catchment-wide estimation of sediment-nutrient loads

Abstract

The availability of reliable estimates of sediment and nutrient loads is central to effective catchment management. This requirement becomes even more critical if load-based licensing, regulation, and target-setting are to be at all meaningful. It is not uncommon for numerical targets to be overwhelmed by prediction/estimation uncertainty. Given the reliance on catchment models for target-setting, prediction, and evaluation it is important that their performance characteristics be quantified and their vulnerabilities understood. A number of comparative studies have been undertaken and many have reported significant discrepancies among loads estimated from different models. This paper reports..