Delimitation of Colombia hydrologic regions

Abstract

One application of regional analysis is the transfer of hydrological informationfrom gauged to ungauged basins. In some cases, hydrologicalregionalization is a valid approach to estimate flow values in places whereinformation is not available, the best results being obtained when the basinsthat form a hydrological region exhibit similar hydrologic behavior. Inconsideration of the study of the hydroelectric potential of Colombia, theaim of this study was to identify hydrologic regions for calculating theirannual average flow. The Colombian continental territory was dividedinto 9139 basins, which were characterized with twenty hydrological,climatic and morphometric attributes directly related to flow prediction.Univariate statistical analysis and implementation of multivariate statisticaltechniques identified sixteen hydrologic regions, in which basinsclustered around attributes such as evaporation, clustered basins, withattributes associated to runoff and watershed descriptors associated withrelief attribute descriptors were observed. In addition to satisfy the aimsof the project, the results represent a technical basis to formulate projectsto strengthen data collection networks and to design future research toassess the availability of surface water at regional level.