Evaluation of Different Objective Functions Used in the SUFI-2 Calibration Process of SWAT-CUP on Water Balance Analysis: A Case Study of the Pursat River Basin, Cambodia

Many calibration techniques have been developed for the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Among them, the SWAT calibration and uncertainty program (SWAT-CUP) with sequential uncertainty fitting 2 (SUFI-2) algorithm is widely used and several objective functions have been implemented in its calibration process. In this study, eight different objective functions were used in a calibration of stream flow of the Pursat River Basin of Cambodia, a tropical monsoon and forested watershed, to examine their influences on the calibration results, parameter optimizations, and water resources estimations. As results, many objective functions performed better than satisfactory in calibrating the SWAT model. However, different objective functions defined different fitted values and sensitivity rank of the calibrated parameters, except Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) and ratio of standard deviation of observations to root mean square error (RSR) which are equivalent and produced quite identical simulation results including parameter sensitivity and fitted parameter values, leading to the same water balance components and water yields estimations. As they generated reasonable fitted parameter values, either NSE or RSR gave better estimation results of annual average water yield and other water balance components such as annual average evapotranspiration, groundwater flow, surface runoff, and lateral flow according to the characteristics of the river basin and the results and data of previous studies. Moreover, either of them was also better in calibrating base flow, falling limb, and overall the entire flow phases of the hydrograph in this area.