A influência de reservatórios na vazão do Rio São Francisco

Abstract

Knowledge about watershed stream flow regime allows for better public water resource management. However, human activity through reservoir operation can change the stream flow regime. In the Brazilian Northeast region, the São Francisco river basin has a major social and energetic importance. This basin has two large reservoirs, Três Marias and Sobradinho that can affect downstream flow. We select three stations in São Fracisco/MG, Juazeiro/BA and Pão de Açúcar/AL to evaluate influence from the reservoir in the river’s downstream flow. We use Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA), Multi Scale Entropy (MSE) and Sliding Window Analysis (SWA) to evaluate changes in dynamics and complexity of river stream flow. Our major results can be summarized as follows: (1) hydrologic regime in the Juazeiro/BA and Pão de Açúcar/AL stations (closer to Large Hydropower/Reservoir - LHP/R) changed after LHP/R construction from persistent (in scales from 30 days to 1,5 years) to anti-persistent (in scales from 10 days to 1,5 years), while the series from São Francisco/MG station (most distant to LHP/R) doesn’t present any differences in long range correlations after LHP/R construction; (2) MSE analysis shows that series from Juazeiro/BA and Pão de Açúcar/AL stations have more complex dynamics after LHP/R construction and their anomalies have less complex dynamics after LHP/R construction, differently from the São Francisco/MG station series which didn’t show any hydrologic dynamics differences throughout the same periods; (3) changes in Sliding Window SampEn (SWA-SampEn) after Sobradinho LHP/R construction were detected in the Juazeiro/BA and Pão de Açúcar/AL station series. These results indicate that regulation in stream flow by Sobradinho LHP/R has influenced the complexity and long-range correlations on the lower São Francisco river basin.