Spatial and Temporal Rainfall Variability in a Small Urban Watershed, Bogotá, Colombia

• Main Authors: Erasmo Alfredo Rodríguez Sandoval, Luis A. Camacho B., Jacobo Villareal P., Alejandro Jiménez, Ana Carolina Santos R., María del Pilar Duarte B.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad Nacional de Colombia 2008-01-01
• Series: Cuadernos de Geografía: Revista Colombiana de Geografía
• Subjects: hidrología urbana; variabilidad espacial y temporal de la precipitación; aplicación de técnicas geoestadísticas; microcuenca urbana; microclima.
• Online Access: https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/rcg/article/view/10924
• ISSN: 0121-215X; 2256-5442

The design of combined and stormwater sewer systems is usually accomplished assuming that rainfall is uniform in time and space for areas smaller than 1 km2. This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge of the space/time rainfall variability in urban basins of this kind. We investigate the impact of such variability on the design of sewage systems and, more importantly, on the runoff flows obtained through  mathematical models rigorously calibrated and validated. Our case of study, the campus of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, sede Bogotá, was densely instrumented. Among the events thus recorded, we have analyzed one of the most important in terms of intensity and total rainfall. This paper describes the detailed results.