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Estimation of the water balance of for a small tropical andean catchment

Abstract:

The present study seeks to estimate the water balance for a tropical catchment in the Andes of Ecuador. Temporal variation in precipitation and temperature of the Chaquilcay microcatchment were studied; it is a natural ecosystem situated in the Aguarongo Protected Forest in Gualaceo, Ecuador. Four meteorological stations of the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (INAMHI-Instituto Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología) were studied for 33 years (1982-2015), in order to quantify the contributions and losses of water, and statistical analyzes of the time series. To fill and validate the series of precipitation and temperature, a double mass analysis was used to develop reference stations and fill missing records. Temperature data were supplemented with the isothermal raster of Ecuador. A digital elevation model (DEM) was used to pbkp_redict the amount of sun light, and the Thornthwaite method (1948) was applied to estimate time series of evapotranspiration. Our water balance analysis indicates 843;7 mm of total annual precipitation, a storage difference of 18;71 mm representing 2;22% of the total annual precipitation, surplus of 144;5 mm, and current evapotranspiration of 680;5 mm, amounting to 17;13% and 80;65% of the total annual precipitation, respectively.