Estimación del régimen de flujo en cuencas hidrológicas no-aforadas de la región Pacífico-Norte de Costa Rica

Accuracy in runoff data estimation is desirable and useful for river basin planning and management. It can reduce the hydrological risks of both floods and droughts beforehand. Runoff volume and its variability concern a variety of factors such as rainfall, atmospheric circulation, physical characteristics.
Hydrological Monthly runoff time-series estimation is imperative information for water resources planning and development projects. The rainfall-runoff model is a mathematical approach to be used to describe the relationship between rainfall and runoff. The accurate estimates or predictions of catchment runoff mainly rely on hydrological models that play important roles in a wide range of practical issues in society, including water resource management, flood prediction, drought warnings, and coupled systems modeling such as water quality, hydro-ecology, and climate. Successful hydrological modeling often requires accurate inputs such as precipitation and streamflow data. However, high-precision hydrology and meteorological stations cannot be deployed in remote locations. Furthermore, there are very limited hydrological and meteorological observing stations in many developing countries that provide sufficient information for hydrological monitoring and forecasting due to financial limitations. Therefore, runoff prediction in ungauged and scarcely gauged catchments is a key research field in surface water hydrology.
To tackle these issues, engineers often use the hydrological regionalization methods for runoff simulations and predictions in ungauged catchment areas.
The idea behind regionalization is to use hydrological model parameters calibrated in the gauged catchment(s) (called donor(s)) to derive the model parameters in a target ungauged catchment, and then predicts runoff time series in the ungauged catchment. However, to date, there are no public studies in Costa Rica that have investigated the feasibility of establishing relationships
between parameters of hydrological models and characteristics of instrumented watersheds, let alone the regionalization of hydrological models aimed at simulating continuous time series in ungauged watershed catchments. Much of the Northern Pacific region of Costa Rica exhibits a precarious balance between available water resources and water demand, resulting from low conversion of precipitation into runoff.
The rapid population growth characteristic of this region is consequently increasing the demand for water for domestic, agricultural, and industrial purposes, pointing to scenarios of scarcity in the medium and long term. A regionalization study in the region would offer an invaluable opportunity
to estimate time series of flows in ungauged watersheds.
Therefore, this study aims to estimate the flow regime in ungauged hydrological basins in the Northern Pacific region of Costa Rica by identifying, selecting, and evaluating regionalization methods associated with precipitation-runoff hydrological models. The structure of this project is divided into four sequential stages, linked to four specific objectives: (1) Characterization of hydrological basins using remote sensing, (2) Preparation of historical meteorological and
hydrometric series of instrumented hydrological basins, (3) Description of the flow regime in selected gauged hydrological basins, and (4) Identification, selection, and evaluation of hydrological regionalization methods.

Estimar el régimen de flujo en cuencas hidrológicas no-aforadas de la región Pacífico-Norte de Costa Rica mediante la identificación, selección y evaluación de métodos de regionalización asociados a modelos hidrológicos de precipitación-escorrentía.

Recursos Hídricos y Ambiente