Identification of environmental buffer areas in urbanized catchments based on synthetic ecosystem functions

Abstract

The Saldan river basin in the northwest of the metropolitan area of Córdoba, Argentina, was defined as a unit for the observation of ecosystem services of water regulation. The capacity of the system to retain excess rainfall through vegetation in areas with slopes was analyzed. The observation area was a wildland-urban interface. From there, a model capable of synthesizing the behavior of the most relevant variables in the event of an extraordinary rainfall event was adjusted. The result was the definition of buffer areas or exosystemic protection in the interface. The testing and adjustment of this model defined a REP indicator that was proposed as an input in the planning of the sector. For validation, soil moisture permanence values from LWI were used. The derivative was calculated for each pixel value in the basin, for both dry and wet periods, and the areas with the lowest loss in both periods were compared with those with the highest retention obtained in the model. The zones identified by both methods show great similarities.