Modeling Rainwater Harvesting and Storage Dynamics of Rural Impoundments in Dry Chaco Rangelands

Marcos Javier Niborski; Osvaldo Antonio Martin; Francisco Murray; Esteban Gabriel Jobbágy; Marcelo Daniel Nosetto; Ricardo Andrés Paez; Patricio Nicolás Magliano

doi:10.3390/w15132353

journal article Open Access Jun 25, 2023

Modeling Rainwater Harvesting and Storage Dynamics of Rural Impoundments in Dry Chaco Rangelands

Osvaldo Antonio Martin Francisco Murray Esteban Gabriel Jobbágy Marcelo Daniel Nosetto Ricardo Andrés Paez Patricio Nicolás Magliano

Water Vol. 15 No. 13 pp. 2353 · MDPI AG

View at Publisher Save 10.3390/w15132353

Abstract

Transporting water to supply livestock is one of the great challenges of the drylands. Ranchers usually make impoundments, filled by runoff, to access freshwater for cattle supply in flat rangelands. The aim of this study was to understand rainfall-runoff generation and water storage temporal dynamics of impoundments in the Dry Chaco rangelands (Argentina). Thus, we instrumented six impoundments over three consecutive years and analyzed water storage data by developing a probabilistic model. For all impoundments, the rainfall event size thresholds to generate runoff presented values between 15 and 33 mm. Once they reached this threshold, the water gain response slopes presented values between 19 and 99 m3 mm−1. Loss patterns of water storage were described by exponential or linear functions. The predicted water storage dynamics presented high accuracy with the observed time series for all impoundments (RMSD between 380 and 1320 m3). The model only needs daily rainfall and air temperature to be run, making it easy to be used by scientists, ranchers, or local decision makers. It may be used to explore the hydrological functioning of small and seasonal water bodies of different sites of the world exposed to drought episodes caused by high climate variability and/or climate change.

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Citations

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References

Details

Published: Jun 25, 2023
Vol/Issue: 15(13)
Pages: 2353
License: View

Authors

M

Marcos Javier Niborski

Grupo de Estudios Ambientales-IMASL, Universidad Nacional de San Luis (UNSL) y CONICET, San Luis D5700HHW, Argentina; Cátedra de Manejo y Conservación de Suelos, Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), Buenos Aires C1417DSE, Argentina

O

Osvaldo Antonio Martin

IMASL, Universidad Nacional de San Luis (UNSL) y CONICET, San Luis D5700HHW, Argentina

F

Francisco Murray

INTA, AER San Luis, San Luis D5700HHW, Argentina

E

Esteban Gabriel Jobbágy

Grupo de Estudios Ambientales-IMASL, Universidad Nacional de San Luis (UNSL) y CONICET, San Luis D5700HHW, Argentina

M

Marcelo Daniel Nosetto

Grupo de Estudios Ambientales-IMASL, Universidad Nacional de San Luis (UNSL) y CONICET, San Luis D5700HHW, Argentina; Cátedra de Climatología, Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos (UNER), Concepción del Uruguay E3260FIB, Argentina

R

Ricardo Andrés Paez

Grupo de Estudios Ambientales-IMASL, Universidad Nacional de San Luis (UNSL) y CONICET, San Luis D5700HHW, Argentina

P

Patricio Nicolás Magliano

Grupo de Estudios Ambientales-IMASL, Universidad Nacional de San Luis (UNSL) y CONICET, San Luis D5700HHW, Argentina; Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Química, Bioquímica y Farmacia, Universidad Nacional de San Luis (UNSL), San Luis D5700HHW, Argentina

Funding

National Agency for the Promotion of Research, Technological Development and Innovation Award: PICTs 2972-2020

CONICET-Argentina Award: PICTs 2972-2020

Bunge and Born Foundation and National Ministry of Science and Technology of Argentina Award: PICTs 2972-2020

San Luis Applied Maths Institute (CONICET–National University of San Luis; Argentina) Award: PICTs 2972-2020

Cite This Article

Marcos Javier Niborski, Osvaldo Antonio Martin, Francisco Murray, et al. (2023). Modeling Rainwater Harvesting and Storage Dynamics of Rural Impoundments in Dry Chaco Rangelands. Water, 15(13), 2353. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15132353

Modeling Rainwater Harvesting and Storage Dynamics of Rural Impoundments in Dry Chaco Rangelands

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