Comparative Sensitivity Analysis of Hydrology and Relative Corn Yield under Different Subsurface Drainage Design Using DRAINMOD

Abstract

DRAINMOD is a process-based hydrologic model used to analyze the effectiveness of various drainage systems and management strategies. In this study, a sensitivity analysis of DRAINMOD hydrologic parameters for two different field settings located at Champaign, Illinois, was performed to determine the most sensitive parameters that affect the subsurface flow and relative productivity of corn. Latin-Hypercube One-Factor-at-a-Time (LH-OAT) was used to determine the sensitivity index of 17 parameters for six objective functions for daily flow, water balance, and relative yield for the productivity of corn. The results indicated that flow and yield were highly sensitive to drainage design parameters such as drainage depth and spacing. Winter flow and the water balance were sensitive to soil thermal conductivity parameters; however, they had no impact on the relative corn yield. The significant difference in sensitivity of the two fields was observed in the hydraulic conductivity of soil layers due to varying thicknesses for different soil types. This study highlights the need for more careful calibration of these sensitive parameters to reduce equifinality and model output uncertainty and appropriate drainage design for optimizing crop productivity and drainage outflow.