Using udometric network data to estimate an environmental covariate

Abstract

Manyhydrologicalandecologicalstudiesrecognizetheimportanceofcharacterizingthetemporalandspatialvari- ability of precipitation. In this study, geostatistical methodologies were developed in order to estimate a hydro-meteorological factor by (re)building the space-time distribution of the precipitation associated to monthly averages in a certain hydrological river basin that will be used in the modelling of surface water quality. A hydro-meteorological factor is constructed for each water quality monitoring site (WQMS), based on the analysis of the space-time behaviour of the precipitation observed in an udometric network located in a Portuguese river basin.