Estimating basin-wide hydraulic parameters of a semi-arid mountainous watershed by recession-flow analysis

Insufficient sub-surface hydraulic data from watersheds often hinders design of water resources structures. This is particularly true in developing countries and in watersheds with low population densities because well-drilling to obtain the hydraulic data is expensive. The objective of this study was to evaluate the applicability of 'Brutsaert' recession flow analysis to steeper and more and watersheds than those that were previously used. Using daily streamflow data (1962-1992), a modified version of the analysis was used to estimate the subsurface hydraulic parameters of four semi-arid, mountainous watersheds (204-764 km(2)) near Oaxaca, Mexico. In this analysis, a dimensionless recession curve (DRC) was translated to best-fit observed recession flow (Q) data. The basin-wide hydraulic parameters were directly related to the magnitude of the translation used to fit the DRC to the data. One unique aspect of this study was too few high flow data to confidently fit the DRC to the data via previously published protocols. We, thus, proposed using three different approaches for translating the DRC in order to establish a range for the hydraulic parameters. Our analyses predicted a narrow range of basin-wide hydraulic parameters that were near regionally measured values and consistent within commonly published values for similar geology, suggesting that the Brutsaert method is applicable to arid, mountainous basins like those used here. This method potentially provides a cost-effective alternative to traditional geohydrological field methods for determining groundwater parameters. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.