Development and application of a simple hydrologic model simulation for a Brazilian headwater basin

Physically based hydrologic models for watersheds are important tools to support water resources management and predict hydrologic impacts produced by land-use change. Grande River Basin is located in southern Minas Gerais State, and the Grande River is the main tributary of Basin which has 2080 km² draining into the Camargos Hydropower Plant Reservoir (CEMIG — “Minas Gerais State Energy Company”). The objectives of this work were: 1) to create a semi-physically based hydrologic model in semi-distributed to sub-basins approach and based on GIS and Remote Sensing tools and, 2) to simulate the hydrologic responses of the Grande River Basin, thus creating an important tool for management and planning of water resources for region. The hydrologic model is based on the SCS Curve Number (SCS-CN) and MGB/IPH models, and structured into three hydrologic components: estimation of the flow components (quick runoff, hortonian and base flows), propagation into the respective soil reservoirs (surface, sub-surface and shallow saturated zone) and propagation into the channels. Precipitation and discharge data sets were obtained from the Brazilian National Water Agency (ANA). Reference evapotranspiration (ETo) data were obtained from the Brazilian National Meteorological Institute (INMET). In order to estimate actual evapotranspiration, crop coefficient, soil moisture and satellite image interpretation of actual land-use were applied. The long-term hydrologic data series were structured for period between 1990 and 2003. The calibration and validation process was carried out by evaluating the behavior of the Nash–Sutcliffe Coefficient (C_NS), obtained from three different combinations of calibration and validation years. This allowed us to evaluate the model performance to simulate years in which El Niño (EN) and La Niña (LN) events were registered (1997–1998 and 1999–2000, respectively). The combinations of calibration and validation years were: the first 7 years to calibrate and remaining 6 years to validate; the first 9 years to calibrate and remaining 4 years to validate; and first 11 years to calibrate and the last 2 years to validate. The statistical precision showed that the model was able to simulate the hydrologic impacts, including years of EN and LN events, with C_NS scores greater than 0.70 in both situations. The evaluation of the C_NS scores showed small variation in the coefficient as the years of validation decreased. In addition, the model was also able to simulate the hydrologic impacts of land-use change in the Grande River Basin, based on the C_NS scores of 0.80 for different combinations of validation periods. The hydrologic impacts in Grande River Basin produced from grassland area converted to eucalyptus under three specific scenarios were evaluated, which predicted annual runoff mean reductions of up to 17.8%, due to an increase in evapotranspiration rate for the eucalyptus plantation.