Improving hydrologic model to predict the effect of snowpack and soil temperature on carbon dioxide emission in the cold region peatlands

Peatlands cover only about 3% of the Earth's surface and store 15–30% of the Global soil carbon as a peat. However, human intervention and climate change threatens the stability of peatlands, owing to deforest, wildfire, mining, drainage, glacial retreat, and permafrost. In our study, we modified the SWAT model to couple snow, soil temperature and carbon dioxide emission. Then the modified SWAT was used for predicting snow depth, soil temperature at different depths and carbon dioxide emission from peatlands and other land uses at Athabasca river basin, Canada. The results of the study indicated that SWAT model estimated the daily snow depth with R², NSE, RMSE and PBIAS values of 0.83, 0.76, 0.52 and −2.3 in the calibration period (2006–2007) and 0.79, 0.71, 0.97 and −3.6 for the validation period (2008–2009), respectively. The SWAT model also predicted soil temperature very well at three depths (5 cm, 10 cm and 30 cm). The simulation model results also confirmed that the modified SWAT model estimates the CO₂ emission at Athabasca river basin with good model fit during calibration (R² = 0.71, NSE = 0.67, RMSE = 2.6 and PBIAS = 3.2) and during validation (R² = 0.63, NSE = 0.58, RMSE = 3.1 and PBIAS = 9.3). Overall, our result confirmed that SWAT model performed well in representing the dynamics of snow depth, soil temperature and CO₂ emissions in the peatlands at the Athabasca river basin.