In this study, a comprehensive methodology was adapted to determine the environmental flow regime of “La Yerbabuena”, a temporary stream located in the Aguascalientes Valley, Mexico. The analysis was divided into four stages: the geomorphological watershed analysis, a hydrologic analysis, hydraulic modeling, and environmental analysis. The main geomorphological features of the study area were defined from maps in the spatial block, and with them, a synthetic series of daily and monthly discharge was determined and further used in the next stages. In the hydrological stage, the IHA (Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration) methodology and the procedures from the Mexican regulation, named NMX-159, were applied to the stream, and their results were comparatively analyzed. A similar interannual flow variation from both methodologies was found for wet and dry seasons, ranging from 0.010 to 0.108 m3/s. In the hydraulic modeling stage, a micro-basin part of the stream was modeled in the software HEC RAS, observing that the IHA methodology results had water levels that matched the baseflow of the stream, which allows understanding the hydraulic behavior of the water flow through the generation of different profiles in function of the rainy season. Finally, for the environmental stage, the hydrological health of the stream was evaluated using the software Flow Health, additionally observing that the IHA methodology was closer to the desired water level of the reference. This study demonstrates that the proposed methodology achieves the objectives defined by the NMX-159, which establishes a streamflow regime considering a natural interval of hydrologic variability in both ordinary and after-disturbance conditions. This application of the methodology for temporary streams provides an understanding of the hydrological behavior of the environmental flow throughout the year, and regarding the existing regulations, it presents a correlation with the obtained results, as well as greater precision in the dry season.
Land subsidence in the Aguascalientes Valley, documented since the 1980s, has developed a large number of discontinuities that damage infrastructure. There is currently no methodology to accurately predict the site and time at which a discontinuity will occur, making it difficult to make decisions in urban planning or risk management. However, it is possible to determine the susceptibility of an area to the generation of fractures based on the factors associated with their formation. This study presents a zoning method based on the ground failure susceptibility index (GFSI) in the city of Aguascalientes, using the frequency ratio (FR) method and employing the depth of the basement, the subsidence rate, the subsidence gradient, and the groundwater level drawdown as variables. The zoning method included three categories of land subsidence susceptibility to fracturing, moderate, high, and very high, which were divided using the first (3.76) and second (4.24) quartiles of the GFSI. The zoning method was created with the discontinuities reported in 2010 and was validated with data from 2022. The results obtained show that 11.19% of the discontinuities developed between 2010 and 2022 were located in a zone of moderate susceptibility, 41.97% were located in a zone of high susceptibility, and 46.87% were located in a zone classified as having very high susceptibility.
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