Resumen
The progressive change in climatic conditions worldwide has increased frequency and severity of extreme hydrometeorological events (EHEs). México is an example that has been affected by the occurrence of EHE leading to economic, social, and environmental losses. The objective of this research was to apply a Canadian distributed hydrological model (DHM) to tropical conditions and to evaluate its capacity to simulate flows in a basin in the central Gulf of Mexico. In addition, the DHM (once calibrated and validated) was used to calculate the theoretical hydraulic power (THP) and the performance to predict streamflow before the presence of an EHE. The results of the DHM show that the goodness of fit indicators between the observed and simulated flows in the calibration process Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) = 0.83, ratio of the root mean square error to the standard deviation of measured data (RSR) = 0.41, and percent bias (PBIAS) = -4.3) and validation (NSE = 0.775, RSR = 0.4735, and PBIAS = 2.45) are satisfactory. The DHM showed its applicability: determination of THP showed that the mean flows are in synchrony with the order of the river reaches and streamflow simulation of 13 EHEs (NSE = 0.78 ± 0.13, RSR = 0.46 ± 0.14 and PBIAS = -0.48 ± 7.5) confirmed a reliable efficiency. This work can serve as a tool for identifying vulnerabilities before floods and for the rational and sustainable management of water resources.