Monitoring programmes in a basin of Argentina

ARES, MARÍA GUADALUPE; CHAGAS, CELIO; VARNI, MARCELO; MOZO, JOAQUÍN

Seminario; IV Seminar on Catchment Monitoring and Assessment of the Southern Cone - III Forum of Geo-Bio- Hydrology; 2018

Del Azul basin is located in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Since 1996, our Institution (Instituto de Hidrología de Llanuras) has developed several monitoring programmes to study the hydrological dynamics of the Del Azul basin, which include the recording of different hydro meteorological variables. At the Del Azul entire basin scale (6237 km2), groundwater levels and groundwater quality are analysed in a network of 60 boreholes. Overland flow is monitored at the outlet of the Del Azul watershed. Water stages are also registered at the upper and middle basins of the Del Azul stream (981 km2), and at the main tributaries: Videla and Santa Catalina streams, whose basins have an area of 116 and 143 km2, respectively. At small watershed scale, in a tributary of the Videla stream (5.6 km2), we carry out runoff and water erosion studies. This is the most recent monitoring programme, which started in 2011, in collaboration with Universidad de Buenos Aires. We are now focused on the development of water erosion studies based on the connectivity-disconnectivity approach. These are novel studies for small watersheds in Argentina, not carried out previously. In this approach, we propose to analyse hysteresis patterns, and to identify sediment sources. We are now working at the incorporation of turbidity sensors to study in detail the sediment-discharge relationships. We are one of the first research groups to carry out this type of studies in our country.