Smart Watershed Monitoring for near Real-time Hydrologic Modeling in a Tropical Environment: The Case of Magat River Basin in Luzon, Philippines

An important input in the hydrologic system that we translate into a hydrologic model is precipitation. In the Philippines, its tropical location and orientation being subjected to the Southwest Monsoon winds make it abundant with rainfall. It is one of the countries in the world with the greatest recorded rainfalls. Nevertheless, during the dry season, the country experiences water scarcity, compromising water supply for various uses. In impoundments such as the Magat Dam, water allocation to different stakeholders - irrigation and hydropower - has to be optimized for fair water distribution. Much needed in decision-making is to have an accurate information of what is to be measured. Rainfall in a watershed is a distributed phenomenon, hence, rain gauges in a large catchment has to be in distributed in the area to be able to get a more correct representation of the rainfall distribution.