MAUA® – Our Innovative Watershed Model

ProEstado-MAUA® is a watershed model built on theory, knowledge and data developed and built by PROSPECTIVE that holds its copyrights.  For every watershed the model is parametrically adapted.  In addition, field visits are performed to establish the Ground Truth of the systemic configuration on the terrain that ought to become part of the model being adapted.

For a watershed a bottom-up, dynamic model is created that fully captures the natural and human processes that generate time-related behaviors at three interconnected spatial levels:

1. Atmospheric Level: Simulates the meteorological variables of precipitation, temperature and evaporation.
2. Surface Level: With the following components:
   1. Human processes:
      1. Social. Considers the dynamics of the population pyramid, education, labor force and employment.
      2. Productive Activities. Utilizes production functions for industries that are germane of the particular watershed: automotive, clothing manufacturing, chemicals, metals, machinery, petroleum, power and water and others.
      3. Agricultural Production. A detailed representation of the crop growing dynamics for the spring-summer, fall-winter and perennial cycles is built into the model.
      4. Land Use. Represents the dynamic behavior of all land uses for human settlements, agricultural production, industrial production, etc.
   2. Land Components of the Water Cycle:
      1. Represents rain-runoff, infiltration, evaporation, rivers flows and lakes.
      2. Captures the human component of the water use; dams, impoundments, canals and water extractions from wells for agricultural, urban use and industry.
3. Underground Level: Represents the dynamics of the volume stored in aquifers as well as the extractions for the various human uses and the recharges as consequence of the runoff in the region.

With this structure, MAUA® provides the continuous numerical analysis of natural and human processes necessary to compute the water supply and demand balance in the watershed in the continuum of time.

The calibration techniques utilized by MAUA® are based on the continuous simulation of natural and human processes by comparing simulated and observed data to adjust MAUA® parameters and evaluate the accuracy of its results. In the calibration of a watershed five to twenty year-time series for the processes considered are utilized and to determine the accuracy of the model.  As a Control Engineering model, MAUA® has the inherent capability of simulating future variable values based on the present states of the natural and human processes in the watershed.

With MAUA®, scenarios of the dynamics of the operation of all of the watershed interactive natural and human processes are created. The values of the processes variables generated by the model in the form of trajectories (series of values associates to time), indicate the states through which the watershed transfers along the time.

The equations of MAUA®, represent the mechanism that generates the time related behavior of the process and also the control that starts/stops of the generating mechanism and determines the intensity and form of the mechanism pattern.

By giving a different set of external values to the control of a process generator in MAUA®, the trajectory of the model can be modify so that the model can reach (and maintain) a different desires state such as sustainable equilibrium.