Data on: Effects of soil and water conservation measures on event-based hydrological responses and sediment yield at semi-arid catchments of Tigray, Northern Ethiopia

This data set was collected from two adjacent small catchments of Korir reservoir in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. The reservoir was built in 1996 to harvest flash floods during the rainy season and irrigate about 100 ha of land during the dry season. The reservoir has paired adjacent small agricultural catchments: Korir and Eyamat with an area of 12.9 and 3.4 km^2 respectively. The input parameters for OpenLISEM were collected for the study catchments during 2023 and 2024. This data contains rainfall data measured using two tipping bucket data loggers (one rain gauge per catchment) at five minutes time interval, catchment characteristic measure from 36 sampling points within the two adjacent catchments and flow discharges and suspended sediment concentration measures at the outlets of the two catchments.<br>The data set is presented in three excel spreadsheets. The first spreadsheet (Catchment_data) contains the catchment characteristics collected from 36 sampling points. These parameters were collected during the 2023 and 2024 rainy seasons from 36 sampling points to prepare input data sets for the event based hydrological and erosion model, OpenLISEM. The catchment characteristics spreadsheet includes the location of the sampling points (in UTM), aggregate stability of soils (aggstab in drop no.), soil cohesion (Coh in KPa), Addional cohesion by roots (AddCoh in KPa), Soil particle median size (D50 in µm), Saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat in mm/h), Manning's n (-), Wetting fron soil water potential (PSI in Cm), Random Roughness (RR in cm), ston fraction (stonFrac in %), Saturated soil moisture content (ThetaS in %), Initial soil moisture content (ThetaI in %, in two weeks interval), Soil texture (USDA textural classes) and the land use type. <br>The second spreadsheet (Eyamat_Summary and Korir_Summary) contains datasets measure at the outlet of the Eyamat and Korir catchments respectively. The first spreadsheet includes the measured precipitation (PPT in mm/hr), observed discharge (Qobs in l/s), observed suspended sediment concentration (SSC obs in g/l), model simulated discharge (Qsim (in l/s) and model simulated suspended sediment concentration (SSCsim in g/l). The rainfall runoff hydrographs for each event are also included in this spreadsheet. The rainfall runoff dates are expresses as YYMMDD. The second and third spreadsheets are the sensitivity of runoff discharge and suspended sediment concentration to the model input parameters. The model sensitivity analysis was done for the first event of the 2023 rainy season (230721) for both catchments. The fourth spreadsheet contains the effects of Stone buds and check dams on runoff discharge and suspended sediment concentration. This includes the base line scenario (SC1), the implementation of stone bunds in the hillslopes and check dams along the gullies (SC2), implementation of only stone bunds in the hillslope areas (SC3) and implementation of only check dams along the gullies (SC4). The last spreadsheet contains the discharge-suspended sediment concentration (Q-SSC) hysteresis and flushing indexes. <br>Spatial coverage:Data was collected from two adjacent small agricultural catchments located upstream of a reservoir based irrigation scheme in Tigray region, northern Ethiopian highlands. The location of sampling points and catchment outlets are indicated in the first excel sheet. <br>Methods, materials and software:The data was collected from two small adjacent catchment of a reservoir at a field and laboratory following standard procedure. Data sets and variable included in the spreadsheets are as explained above. The event based hydrological and soil erosion model, OpenLISEM was used to simulate the runoff discharge and suspended sediment concentration at the outlets of both catchments.<br>