Journal Article

Regionalization of flow duration curves in Colombia

Carvajal-Serna, Fernando, Gaviria, Carlos

2022

Overview

It is essential to know the streamflow behavior in hydrological basins for appropriate water resource planning and management. In Colombia, where there is a considerable water resource potential, there is a need to generate hydrological modeling for many ungauged catchments. Thus, this study presents the regionalization of flow duration curves (FDC) in Colombia. Daily flow time series from 655 gauging stations were used to define homogenous hydrological regions, considering geological, topographic, and climatic information. Fifteen hydrological regions were delimited by cluster analysis using the K-means algorithm, all of which exhibited high spatial heterogeneity. Multiple linear regressions were used to estimate characteristic dimensionless flows as a function of each basin's attributes. A set of equations that allow the reconstruction of simulated dimensionless FDC for each cluster was determined, and regression (R2) values of 0.5–0.9 were obtained. The percentage error of the mean, maximum, and minimum discharge of the simulated FDC compared with observed values were approximately 9, 30, and 50%, respectively.

• Publisher: IWA Publishing
• Subject: Algorithms / Approximation / Basins / Catchments / Cluster analysis / Discharge measurement / Drainage / Flow duration / Flow duration curves / flow duration curves hydrological cluster / Gaging stations / Geomorphology / Heterogeneity / Hydrologic models / Hydrology / k-means / lineal multiple regression / Patchiness / Precipitation / Regression analysis / scarce information hydrology / Spatial heterogeneity / Stream discharge / Stream flow / Time series / Topography / Variables / Water resources / Water resources planning / Watersheds