Advanced techniques for evaluating instream flows in sustainable watershed management
Técnicas avanzadas para la evaluación de caudales ecológicos en el ordenamiento sostenible de cuencas hidrográficas
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15446/ing.investig.v26n1.14695Keywords:
instream flow, IFIM, habitat (en)caudal ecológico, IFIM, hábitat acuático (es)
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Rivers’ potential for satisfying growing water demands has always fascinated human beings. The current idea that a river's natural flow should be reserved to conserve pristine dynamics is a utopian ideal, at least in countries having established a certain level of progress. Effective watershed planning is characterised by being rational and ecological, employing management based on environmental flows (EF), combining water use and ensuring acceptable ecosystem conditions. This work addresses the environmental consequences of regulating rivers and focuses on the need to fix IFs to protect fluvial systems’ ecological integrity. The methods for calculating instream flows are presented as well as approaches provisionally specified in Colombia's legislative framework. Instream flow incremental methodology (IFIM), which is widely used around the world, is summarised to provide a basis for developing a procedure for determining IFs in Colombia as it would seem applicable to local streams. IFIM basic operative rules are then summed up, as is the procedure optimising the balance between a conventional instream flow study's costs and reliability.
La potencialidad de las corrientes fluviales ha fascinado al hombre por su capacidad para satisfacer las demandas crecientes del recurso hídrico superficial a escala temporal y espacial. Actualmente la idea de que los caudales naturales de un río deban reservarse para preservar el funcionamiento prístino del ecosistema resulta utópica, al menos en sociedades que progresan. Una ordenación eficaz del recurso hídrico se caracteriza por ser racional y ecosistémica, con una gestión fundamentada en un régimen de caudales ecológicos (RCE) que compagina los usos del agua asegurando una condición aceptable del ecosistema. Este trabajo analiza la problemática de la regulación de caudales y aborda la necesidad de fijar los RCE para salvaguardar la integridad ambiental. Se presentan los métodos para calcular caudales ecológicos y las pautas especificadas en la legislación colombiana. Con la pretensión de estipular un procedimiento para determinar los RCE en Colombia, se resume la metodología IFIM (Instream Flow Incremental Methodology), ampliamente utilizada en el mundo, y que consideramos aplicable en los sistemas fluviales locales. Finalmente, se concretan las pautas operativas básicas de IFIM y el procedimiento que optimiza el balance entre el coste y la confiabilidad de un estudio convencional de caudales ecológicos.
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Copyright (c) 2006 Juan Manuel Diez Hernández, Liliana Burbano Burbano

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