SWATPlus-datasets: SWAT+ Model Examples & Test Cases

SWAT+ (Soil and Water Assessment Tool Plus) is a public-domain watershed-scale hydrologic model developed by the USDA Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) in collaboration with Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Colorado State University, and other institutions. SWAT+ simulates surface and groundwater quantity and quality, and predicts the environmental impacts of land use, management practices, and climate change.

This repository provides the SWAT+ community with a curated collection of example datasets, test cases, and model setups to support learning, validation, and research.

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Table of Contents

• Getting Started
• Repository Structure
• How to Use
• Contributing
• Citation
• Contact

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Getting Started

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/swat-model/SWATPlus-datasets.git

2. Download latest SWAT+ executable

The latest SWAT+ source code and executable will be always available at SWAT+ Github

Repository Structure

SWATPlus-datasets/
├── SWAT+_model_examples/      # SWAT+ model examples, each with inputs and relevant outputs
│   ├── example1/              # Watershed model that deponstrates the use of land use change scenarios. Provided by Lucas Alcamo. Original conference presented: https://swat.tamu.edu/media/jr1beuzg/g2-1.pdf
│   │   └── notes.md
│   ├── example2/
│   │   └── notes.md
│   └── ...      
├── scripts/
│   ├── run_example.py
│   ├── validate_outputs.py
│   └── ...
├── docs/
│   ├── getting_started.md
│   ├── swatplus_overview.md
│   ├── contributing.md
│   └── ...
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── CONTRIBUTING.md
└── CITATION.cff

Contributing

We welcome contributions to this repository! Please review CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on adding new examples, reporting issues, or submitting improvements.

Citation

If you use resources from this repository in your research, please cite it using the format in CITATION.cff.

Čerkasova, N., Arnold, J. G., White, M. J., Bailey, R., Jeong, J., Zhang, X., Ugraskan, T., Geter, W. F., David, O., Carlson, J. R., & Alcamo, L. (2025). Soil and Water Assessment Tool Plus (SWAT+) Example models [Data set]. https://github.com/swat-model/SWATPlus-datasets

Contact

For questions, suggestions, or collaboration requests, please open an issue or contact the maintainers.

Documentation and References

SWAT+ Source Documentation on GitHub

SWAT+ Input/Output Documentation on Gitbook

SWAT at TAMU

Older SWAT+ versions on Bitbucket