Abstract
Southeastern Brazil has recently experienced drought conditions that have impacted watershed conservation and the management of water quality and quantity for agricultural and urban demands. The Ribeirão das Posses watershed is being monitored as a headwater of the Jaguarí River, which is one of the contributing rivers of the Cantareira Reservoir Complex in the state of São Paulo. The landscape has changed over the last century from native forests to more homogeneous vegetation for pastures, crops and some forest plantations of eucalyptus, which have cumulative impacts on water yield and quality. Currently, the Projeto Conservador das Águas (Water Conservationist Project) has planted small areas with native species vegetation in order to recover degraded areas. The objective of this study was to evaluate the quantity of water in the Ribeirão das Posses Basin by both measurements and by simulating hydrological responses. The Agricultural Ecosystem Services (AgES) watershed model was applied to simulate water movement and storage among land areas. The simulation period was from 2009 to 2014, because the daily streamflow and meteorological data were available for model calibration and testing. We discuss data input requirements, model calibration to fit measured streamflow, and sensitivity to spatially variable rainfall inputs. The calibrated model may be used to estimate streamflow during periods of missing data, and in the future to estimate impacts of land use changes on stream water quantity and quality. Such information can be used in programs of payments for ecosystem services.
Highlights
In 2014, Southeastern Brazil experienced a severe drought which has impacted the water quality and quantity for various demands
Increasing concerns exist about the watersheds of the Piracicaba, Capivari and Jundiaí Rivers, that cover an area of 15,303 km2 in the states of São Paulo (92.6% of the area) and Minas Gerais (7.4% of the area), and form a management region “PCJ Basins” (Bacias PCJ)
Water from part of the PCJ Basins feeds into the Cantareira reservoir system that supplies more than eight million inhabitants in the São Paulo metropolitan area at an average rate of 31 m3 s-1, or approximately 2.7 million m3 d-1
Summary
In 2014, Southeastern Brazil experienced a severe drought which has impacted the water quality and quantity for various demands. Water from part of the PCJ Basins feeds into the Cantareira reservoir system that supplies more than eight million inhabitants in the São Paulo metropolitan area at an average rate of 31 m3 s-1, or approximately 2.7 million m3 d-1. In this context, some of the most important parts of the PCJ Basins are the headwater areas in Minas Gerais state, whose catchments feed the Jaguari River, a tributary of the Piracicaba River and a fundamental source of inter-basin transfers through the Cantareira reservoir system
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