Author(s)

Rafael S. Barboza¹, Ricardo Valcarcel^1*, Ednaldo O. Santos¹, Carlos R. Pereira²

¹Laboratory of Catchment Basins Management, Department of Environmental Sciences, Forestry Institute, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, Brazil.
²Department of Agricultural Engineering and Environment, School of Engineering, Fluminense Federal University, Niteroi, Brazil.

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.

Landscape, Fog Interception, Water Resources, Watershed

Barboza, R. , Valcarcel, R. , Santos, E. and Pereira, C. (2015) Air Basins of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 7, 781-791. doi: 10.4236/jwarp.2015.710064.