Identificación de zonas con potencial agua subterránea mediante técnicas de teledetección, SIG y PJA en el cantón Guamote, provincia de Chimborazo

Abstract

The present research work consisted in identifying areas with potential presence of groundwater in the watershed of County Guamote, applying the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), based on geospatial information. The geospatial information was collected from remote sensing repositories EartData, United States Geological Survey (USGS Earth Explorer), "Sigtierras", and processed using ArcGis software to delimit the area and the geomorphological parameters of the watershed, corresponding to the n01malized difference vegetation index (NDVI), slope, drainage density, soil type and use, and precipitation. The morphological parameters were weighted and classified by PJA analysis assigning relative values to each parameter which was converted into inputs for the groundwater potentiality index (GWPI), modeling and the elaboration of thematic maps of areas with groundwater potential. It was dete1mined that the Cebadas river basin belonging to the Guamote County, has an area of 1220.31 km2, a main channel of 50.89 km, a slope of 9% and a low drainage density (0.14), it is a widened basin, between oblong oval to rectangular oblong, a hypsometric curve associated with mature rivers. Regarding the dynamics of potential aquifers, a greater incidence was found in the western part of the basin, which presented high NDVI values (0.6 to 0.8) characteristic of healthy vegetation, rainfall of up to 3000 mm/year, and mostly flat areas with a high density of drainage. It concluded that it was feasible to identify potential groundwater zones, by means of PJA and GIS, which occupy approximately 20%, and are located in the lower part of the basin. Therefore, it recommended carrying out advanced prospecting and conservation studies.