Abstract

DUQUE-SARANGO, Paola; CAJAMARCA-RIVADENEIRA, Ronald; WEMPLE, Beverley C.  and  DELGADO-FERNANDEZ, Manuel E.. ESTIMATION OF THE WATER BALANCE OF FOR A SMALL TROPICAL ANDEAN. La Granja [online]. 2019, vol.29, n.1, pp.56-69. ISSN 1390-8596.  https://doi.org/10.17163/lgr.n29.2019.05.

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 Insti- tute 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 di- gital elevation model (DEM) was used to predict 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.

Keywords : Catchment water balance; evapotranspiration; Thornthwaite; northern Andes; tropical hydrology.

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