A synthetic model of surface inundation relationships and water source impacts of the wetland Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park, Central Spain

Abstract

Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park, Central Spain, is the most outstanding element of the Mancha Húmeda UNESCO's Biosphere Reserve, to which it has belonged since 1981. In recent years, the Park has undergone both a groundwater level drop and a decrease in surface inflow. This has disrupted the equilibrium between fluvial, groundwater and man-made processes, causing the ecological biodiversity to dwindle. At the present time, several different strategies involving the application of external water sources are being considered in an attempt to improve the system's current situation. For an analysis of the feasibility of these strategies, it is necessary to have a plausible model of the surface inundation process of the Park. This article presents a model based on a cell-to-cell algorithm which has been designed to meet this objective. Firstly, this model has yielded the hypsometric curves associated with different water source locations. By applying dynamic water budgets, with these curves it is possible to synthetically characterize the inundation that would be caused by the different water application strategies. Moreover, the model also provides an aerial visualization of the evolution of the inundated area. Therefore, in addition to contributing to a better understanding of the complex hydrological behaviour of the Park, the model proposed here is a useful tool that can provide elements of judgement with which to assess the efficiency of the different improvement strategies for simplified hydrological evaluations and visualizations.