PAVLIB4SWAT: a Python analysis and visualization tool and library based on Kepler.gl for SWAT models

Abstract

Abstract The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) has been widely applied to simulate the hydrological cycle, investigate cause-and-effect relationships, and aid decision-making for better watershed management. However, the software tools for model dataset analysis and visualization to support informed decision-making in a web environment are not considered fully fledged and are technically intensive to implement. This study focuses on addressing these issues by establishing a tool and library (named PAVLIB4SWAT) that can largely reduce technical expertise requirements for developers to adopt and customize this work to their own demands. Specifically, we created PAVLIB4SWAT based on a Kepler.gl widget to visualize SWAT model data, including shapefiles from the watershed delineation process, model inputs, and simulated results via dynamic and interactive maps. We evaluated PAVLIB4SWAT through a Jinjiang watershed SWAT model use case to demonstrate its utility and ease of adoption. The case study shows that PAVLIB4SWAT can provide various geospatial analysis and mapping functionalities for SWAT models and can flexibly distribute visualized results as standalone offline web pages and web servers. In addition, PAVLIB4SWAT was designed as an open-source project and implemented purely in the Python programming language; thus, developers can easily adapt and customize it to suit their demands.