| Summary: | This work presents the determination of saturated areas in the Pequeno River watershed(104 km2), located in the São José dos Pinhais District, Metropolitan Region of Curitiba,Paraná State, Brazil. We employed the hydrological model TOPMODEL which assumes thatthe water dynamics are influenced by soil and hillslope characteristics of the entire watershed.It calculates the runoff and the spatial distribution (saturated and unsaturated areas) of the soilhumidity in the system throughout the considered time period. The maps of the saturatedareas were analyzed taking into account the land use and riparian vegetation (permanentpreservation). The computations showed a good adherence between calculated and observedrunoff (R²=0.75), thus confirming the model efficiency in regions of humid climate andsmooth topography. The simulation results reveal a potential application for environmentalplanning because they allow the discussion and further orientation for human interventions inthe environment based on the understanding of the natural processes.
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