Hydrological WEAP Modeling of the Upper Basin of the Apurimac River Basin, in Peru. An Assessment of Available Water Resources and Supply

Abstract:

Designing sustainable water resources systems is challenging given the natural scarcity of this resources in certain region and the increasing anthropogenic water demand for economic purposes. The overall goal of this study is to develop an empirical hydrologic model (one bucket model) that can adequately represent the hydrology and water resources management in the Apurimac River Basin (ARB) in Peru. The specific objectives are to: (a) develop the empirical hydrologic model, calibrate and validate it (b) build a water allocation model (c) evaluate their water supply performance with different series of scenarios (i) current and future water demands, (ii) with and without the construction of the reservoir under different hydrologic conditions (normal, dry and wet). Water Evaluation And Planning (WEAP) was used to build the model and evaluate different water allocation strategies, new infrastructure, and assess current and future water needs based on the requirement of the Regional Government of Cuzco and Arequipa. The proposed hydrologic model is a one-bucket model, where the processes of direct runoff, interflow and baseflow are represented and the process of groundwater recharge is the vertical outflow from the bottom of the bucket. Also, this model includes groundwater component which is an imperative process to consider in the valley of this basin because it provides adequate results, as shown later for this basin. Water allocation model estimate the quantity of water available to different demand sites within a river basin at different times. This study explains their impact in the analysis of the water availability and water supply for current and future water demands in the ARB with and without reservoir.