| dc.description.abstract | The importance of páramos ecosystems is mainly related to water. Its production is
due to the weather patterns found in a specific zone and its regulation due to the
topography, soil, and vegetation. Nonetheless, these ecosystems are susceptible to any sort
of weather or environment changes. In the specific case of the Quinahuaycu catchment,
located within the influence zone of the mining project Quimsacocha, the main alteration
manner is grazing.
Analyzing the effect of these anthropogenic alterations on the páramos hydrology
is relevant to enhance the water resource management. Currently, an essential tool to carry
out this is the Hydrological Modelling management, this allows to scenarios and test
hypotheses.
In the following quantitative research study, it was calibrated the conceptual semidistributed HBV-light Hydrological Modelling in the Quinahuaycu catchment, with an
0.793 average efficiency (Nash-Sutcliffe, Eff-Bias, log(Q) y R2) in calibration and 0.73 in
validation. After, it was studied the impact in the water regulation, simulating 3 vegetation
changes scenarios; recovery of Vegetation Cover (RCN), Increase of herbaceous
vegetation due to grazing (AVHp), and Increase of bare soil (ASD). To achieve the stated
goals, it was in-deep studied; the actual Morphometrics state, the water network, and the
usage of oil and vegetation cover. There were posed rates of exchanges in vegetation to
simulate each scenery. Lastly, it was compared the actual state with the simulations
analyzing the water yields, the storage of water in soil, the current evapotranspiration, the
flow duration curve, the run-off coefficient, and the flow-rate peak ranges. | |
