HR: 0800h
AN: H21A-0183    [Abstracts]
TI: Water Resources Estimation of the Biosphere Reserve "Sierra de las Minas" in Guatemala, by Using a Distributed Hydrological Model and Considering Lack of Data
AU: * MORALES-DE LA CRUZ, M
EM: marmode@doctor.upv.es
AF: Department of Hydraulic Engineering and Environment, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, Valencia, 46022, Spain
AU: FRANCES GARCIA, F
EM: ffrances@hma.upv.es
AF: Department of Hydraulic Engineering and Environment, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, Valencia, 46022, Spain
AB: The UNESCO Biosphere Reserve "Sierra de las Minas" is part of the Guatemalan System of Protected Areas and contains the largest cloud forests of Guatemala. Its southern slopes flow into the Motagua Valley, one of the more active zones in the country and paradoxically, the most arid and driest zone of Central America. The main objective of this work was to obtain a better estimation of the water resources coming from the southern slopes of the "Sierra de las Minas", and to have an analysis tool to better understand key hydrological processes involved on water sustainable management practices, as the environmental services initiatives on the zone. Unfortunately, the lack of data was the general framework. The selected model was the so called TETIS, which is a conceptual distributed model developed by our research group. A simple and efficient method was used for parameter maps estimation with a 100 m cell size. The model was calibrated at daily time step in the Teculután basin with 187 km2, by applying a new split-parameter structure coupled with the SCE-UA automatic optimization algorithm, in order to obtain the set of optimal correction factors of the model. For a period of medium daily precipitation within the validation period, we obtained a simulated discharge very close to the observed data (the monthly Nash and Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient was 0.83). We present here a precipitation spatial and sensitivity analysis, and a simple approach for estimate the contribution of cloud forests to the hydrological balance. Finally, the calibration results were extrapolated to the Uyús ungaged basin to simulate its flow regime and to evaluate its water resources.
DE: 1805 Computational hydrology
DE: 1847 Modeling
DE: 1854 Precipitation (3354)
DE: 1874 Ungaged basins
DE: 1879 Watershed
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting