OPERATING RULES OF RESERVOIRS IN THE BRAZILIAN SEMI-ARID BASED ON THE EVAPORATION SUSCEPTIBILITY
Superficial reservoirs. Evaporation. Operational routines. RTD.
Semi-arid regions are critic for water supply due to the deficit in water balance, generated by high evaporation rates and insufficient precipitation, that damage superficial reservoirs efficiency because irregular inflows and evaporation losses. Technologies it allows the coverage and minimize the solar incidence above the water mirror of reservoir are some of the methods used to mitigate the losses, but provide only partial coverage, require periodic maintenance, and are therefore not practicable. Furthermore, operating methods of reservoirs consider primarily the volumes or flows needed for release in response to demands, not accounting for the impact that evaporation generates on these sources. In an attempt to minimize the volumes lost by evaporation and to increase the water supply associated with the reservoirs, using a classification to the susceptibility to evaporation (SE) through the Regulation Triangle Diagram (RTD), operational routines will be defined for the reservoirs through this categorization.