TITLE:
Air Basins of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil
AUTHORS:
Rafael S. Barboza, Ricardo Valcarcel, Ednaldo O. Santos, Carlos R. Pereira
KEYWORDS:
Landscape, Fog Interception, Water Resources, Watershed
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Water Resource and Protection,
Vol.7 No.10,
July
17,
2015
ABSTRACT: The air basin is a three-dimensional space which conducts and distributes winds over the catchment basins. In the state of Rio de Janeiro (43,305 km2), 48% of the territory comprises the Atlantic slopes (the windward side) and 52% (the leeward side) suffers the influence of the Atlantic Ocean. On the windward side, 20% of the area includes 16 air basins, which influence the movement of humid air currents, affecting all of the windward regions and environmentally conditioning the leeward areas. The morphometric parameters of these air basins have been characterized: area of influence upwind (4 parameters), slope (5 parameters), and distribution zone (5 parameters), and they are grouped together in 5 units by similar functional identity, utilizing multivariable analysis, cluster method, with a Euclidian distance of 48%, significance level of 95%, and correlation coefficient of 0.7132. The management of environmental services within the hydro-graphic basins where 16 million people live is conditioned by these air basins, which could have their environmental planning perfected by this knowledge.