Clasificación de cuerpos de agua de una zona templada (Argentina): criterios geomorfológicos, climáticos y morfométricos

Abstract

The Argentinean Pampean region is located in a template climate between 31o38’ and 38o50’ South and between 64o and 56o40’ West. The aim of this work was to classify the water bodies of the study area based on satellite data, edaphic, geomor- phologic, morphometric and climatic criteria. The number of water bodies and area were obtained from the processing of the NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), satellite product of MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiome- ter) and the spatial data integration in a Geographic Information System (GIS). 

As a result, a number of 268 shallow lakes and 2 reservoirs were detected with a water covered area larger than 1200km2. The largest covered areas as well as the highest density of water bodies were observed in the west of the region, in coinci- dence with the geomorphologic units of continental plain and lakes depression. The smallest density of water cover was detected in zones of the valleys, mountains, paleochannels and littoral plain. As a result of the clustering method application, 4 groups of water bodies were defined: continental plain water bodies, closed basins shallow lakes, shallow lakes with tectonic origin and the lakes related with eolic processes.