Eduardo Buroz-Castillo / Academia Nacional de Ingenieria y Habitat de Venezuela
In this paper, an approach to a new method for the spatio-temporal forecasting of hydrological variables in basins is proposed termed as CIHAM-UC-SPF-HV. This was demonstrated using as hydrological variables to the precipitation and evaporation measured in 174 and 82 monitoring stations respectively, during period 1960-2000 located in the UTM zone 19 North of Venezuela and the indirect variable estimated by a water balance. This comprises the stages: 1) Collection of hydrological data, 2) Estimation of hydrological variable’s spatial prediction, 3) Temporal forecasting of parameters derived from statistical spatial prediction model for hydrological variables, 4) Spatio-Temporal forecasting of hydrological variables and 5) Validation of the results in the forecasted hydrological variables. The main advantages are: a) the combination of deterministic and spatially correlated random components, both of these supported by historical records associated to time series of hydrological variables, and b) multiple mathematical structures contribute to predict the parameters of statistical spatial forecasting model of the hydrological variables, selecting that by which the seasonal pattern and trend to be the closest to the observed values. The method is suitable to reproduce the spatio-temporal pattern between observed and forecasted values below two standard deviation of the mean values. In the present study, the CIHAM-UC-STF-HV method has been evaluated for the spatio-temporal forecasting hydrological variables in basins finding that the method produces suitable results, reproducing the spatio-temporal pattern between observed and forecasted values below two standard deviation of the mean values. The CIHAM-UC-STF-HV method has as advantages: a) the combination of deterministic and spatially correlated random components, both of these supported by historical records associated to time series of hydrological variables, where the number and location of monitoring stations used for the spatial prediction can vary according to the time scale selected for the study, b) multiple mathematical structures can be applied to forecast the parameters of statistical spatial estimation model of the hydrological variables selecting that by which the seasonal pattern and trend to be the closest to the observed values, c) few parameters require to be forecasted to achieve and appropriated spatio-temporal forecasting of the hydrological variables, d) the scope of the spatio-temporal forecasting for the hydrological variables can reach to the length of the seasonal pattern, e) the zones without historical records of hydrological variables can obtain good approaches. Finally, the CIHAM-UC-STF-HV has been proved using direct and indirect hydrological variables finding good correlation between observed and forecasted values.