The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) has undergone a significant revision, resulting in a new version known as SWAT+. This next-generation model is specifically designed to address the complex challenges of modern water resource management. A pivotal advancement is that SWAT+ is now fully open-source and managed on GitHub, transitioning to a phase of community-driven development. The model has been completely restructured with a modular architecture. In this design, governing processes are treated as distinct components, which enhances flexibility and allows for the seamless integration of new scientific findings and easier updates. This new framework enables a suite of advanced capabilities, including:

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  Simulation of complex water transfers, such as inter-basin diversions.

  
  


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  Evaluation of flexible agricultural and water management scenarios.

  
  


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  Assessment of impacts from variable atmospheric CO₂ concentrations.

  
  


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  Modeling of dynamic land-use changes over time.

  
  

Furthermore, SWAT+ offers enhanced process representations, providing more detailed and accurate simulations of soil carbon stocks, pollutant fate and transport, stream erosion dynamics, and reservoir operations.

In essence, SWAT+ represents a paradigm shift toward a more powerful, robust, and collaborative watershed modeling platform. The development team emphasizes rigorous verification to ensure credible applications and invites the scientific community to explore these state-of-the-art capabilities.