EVALUATION OF HYDROLOGIC BEHAVIOR OF THE ENTRE RIBEIROS RIVER BASIN, AN AFFLUENT OF PARACATU RIVER, IN CLIMATIC CHANGE SCENARIO, WITH THE USE OF THE STELLA SOFTWARE

Abstract

Occurrence of extreme changes in the meteorological and climatologic phenomenon has become a fact. Despite adoption of emergency measures, some problems have intensified e.g. increase in the concentration of gases of heating effect; decrease of ozone layer; decline of agricultural land, increasing contamination of aquatic ecosystems and progressive decline of the resources of potable water. One of the aggravating factors for this situation is substitution of the native vegetation, a reality in the Entre Ribeiros river basin, increasing irrigation is replacing “Cerrado” (-47.65%), by cultivation (+198.9%). This has reduced rain water infiltration into the soil, thus reducing the average and the minimum flow. This study, simulated the possible effect of climate change, considering 1 ºC increase of temperature and 6.9% of the precipitation during the period 1995-2060, through modeling based on the origin of “Dynamic of the Systems” with the use of the software STELLA. The results showed a tendency of decrease of 18.70% in the “Direct Precipitation” and significant alterations in the evapotranspirometric rate in pasture grass (+33.34%), Cultivation (+23.77%), “Cerrado” (+8.54%) and Forest (-9.49%).