Evaluation of potential water storage capacity in the Rio Pequeno watershed, São José dos Pinhais, PR

Abstract

Abstract

This work demonstrates the potential water storage capacity of Rio Pequeno watershed, located in the municipality of São José dos Pinhais, in Paraná State, Brazil. The city is part of Curitiba Metropolitan Area and presents high urban and industrial development.The analysis of the Rio Pequeno watershed potential water storage capacity can identify areas of aquifers with higher or lower capacity to recharge, due to implementation of socioeconomic development policies. In order to that, it was applied the methodology of assessment of potential water storage capacity proposed by Chiaranda (2002). It consists in a Geographical Information System (GIS) analysis combined to different sources of information, such as geology, soil type, original plant cover and land uses. The methodology was applied to the years of 1986, 1996, and 2007. In 1986 the basin presented 79.39, 49.38, and 1.68%, in 2007 the basin presented 74.10, 47.73, and 8.62% of its framed area in classes of high, medium and low storage capacity, respectively. According to that, it was observed that land uses have changed the characteristics of potential water storage capacity of Rio Pequeno watershed.

Keywords: Water resources; storage capacity; forest hydrology.