Delimitação dos recursos hídricos no Estado da Paraíba com base na teoria da entropia.

Abstract

Using the Shannon entropy theory, the space variability of rainfall and potential availability of water resources of the Paraíba state was assessed using daily rainfall data from 77 stations for a 10-year period. Mean values of marginal entropy were computed for all observation stations. Rainfall, coefficient of variation and entropy maps were constructed for delineating annual and seasonal characteristics of rainfall in the studied region. The marginal entropy values of rainfall were higher in the locations with the highest amounts of rainfall. The Shannon entropy produced spatial patterns that led to better understanding of rainfall characteristics all over Paraíba state. The intersection of the average annual entropy and of rainfall in the study region originated 4 distinct categories of water availability. This research found that each middle region of Paraíba state falls within each of these categories whose behavior was very different. The results also indicated that the Borborema midlle region, Mata Paraibana, Sertão and Agreste were classified according to the availability of water as low, high, moderately low and moderately high, respectively.