Assessment of natural threats associated with the area of influence of the mouth of the municipality of Ubaté – Cundinamarca

Abstract

In drinking water supply systems, the occurrence of natural phenomena can seriously affect the intake, cause interruptions in the supply and, therefore, affect the supplied population. This research evaluates the degree of threat due to natural phenomena that the intake of the aqueduct of the municipality of Ubaté, Cundinamarca, has. In the first phase, the area of influence of the intake was diagnosed using secondary information, field visits and an interview with the person in charge of public services. In the second phase, the threats were identified by applying spatial models, which were selected from a systematic bibliographic review, and the variables included in each threat were weighted. In the third phase, the resulting maps were categorized and evaluated as low, medium and high threat for each phenomenon analyzed. The results show that in the area of influence, 12 % present a high threat due to mass removal, 15 % highly susceptible to forest fire events, 34 % demonstrate a high threat to the phenomenon of flooding and 33 % have a high threat due to erosion phenomena.