Establishment of the Baseline for the IWRM in the Ecuadorian Andean Basins: Land Use Change, Water Recharge, Meteorological Forecast and Hydrological Modeling

Abstract

This study was conducted in the Zamora Huayco (ZH) river basin, located in the inter-Andean region of southern Ecuador. The objective was to describe, through land use/land cover change (LUCC), the natural physical processes under current conditions and to project them to 2029. Moreover, temperature and precipitation forecasts were estimated to detail possible effects of climate change. Using remote sensing techniques, satellite images were processed to prepare a projection to 2029. Water recharge was estimated considering the effects of slope, groundcover, and soil texture. Flash floods were estimated using lumped models, concatenating the information to HEC RAS. Water availability was estimated with a semi-distributed hydrological model (SWAT). Precipitation and temperature data were forecasted using autoregressive and exponential smoothing models. Under the forecast, forest and shrub covers show a growth of 6.6%, water recharge projects an increase of 7.16%. Flood flows suffer a reduction of up to 16.54%, and the flow regime with a 90% of probability of exceedance is 1.85% (7.72 l/s) higher for 2029 than for the 2019 scenario, so an improvement in flow regulation is evident. Forecasts show an increase in average temperature of 0.11 °C and 15.63% in extreme rainfall by 2029. Therefore, intervention strategies in Andean basins should be supported by prospective studies that use these key variables of the system for an integrated management of water resources.

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Soil Impermeability and Its Impact on the Hydrology of An Urban Basin

“…The Zamora River basin is located in the southern Andes of Ecuador, has an average height of 2400 m above sea level, an average slope of 30%, and an average slope of the main channel of 8.3% [31]. The basin is covered by vegetation in good condition, mainly composed of grasslands, scrublands, and forests [32]. Its climate is subhumid equatorial temperate, with a mean annual precipitation depth of 909.1 mm.…”

Territorial Prospective to Sustainability: Strategies for Future Successful of Water Resource Management on Andean Basins

“…The buffer zone of the Podocarpus National Park (PNP) is located in the upper zone of ZH [24]. The PNP has a strong agricultural, livestock and urban pressure in the surrounding valleys, mainly in its western limits [25], including the Loja [23].…”

“…The natural physical variables were obtained, for current conditions and projected to a 10-year time horizon, through remote sensing techniques and hydrological modeling; for more details you can review [24]. While, the characterization of the socio-economic variables, a survey was carried out in the basin populated area, and for the politicalinstitutional variables, an extensive bibliographic review of current regulations and laws were carried out.…”

“…Physical-natural domain was extensively detailed in part 1 [24], dimensions such as LULC, water recharge estimation, flash floods, hydrological modelling, water availability and meteorological projections were quantified, and its results were associated with the narratives of future hypotheses.…”

Evaluating flash flood vulnerability using combined deterministic and parametric model: A case in the upper Ciliwung watershed, Indonesia

“…Parametric methods, which rely on readily available, site-specific data to identify areas vulnerable to natural disasters, have gained widespread adoption. One approach based on a deterministic model is the SWAT hydrological model, which can provide insight into the hydrological cycles [8][9][10][11][12]. The SWAT model can accurately predict conditions in a given watershed by utilizing data on various factors, such as climate, hydrology, soil properties, and land management.…”