Long-term effects of climate and land cover change on freshwater provision in the tropical Andes.
- Authors
- Veerle, Vanacker
- Format
- Article
- Status
- publishedVersion
- Description
Andean headwater catchments play a pivotal role to supply fresh water for downstreamwater users. However, few long-term studies exist on the relative importance of cli-mate change and direct anthropogenic perturbations on ?ow regimes. In this paper,we assess multi-decadal change in freshwater provision based on long time series5(1974?2008) of hydrometeorological data and land cover reconstructions for a 282 km2catchment located in the tropical Andes. Three main land cover change trajectories canbe distinguished: (1) rapid decline of native vegetation in montane forest and p?ramoecosystems in ? 1/5 or 20 % of the catchment area, (2) expansion of agricultural landby 14 % of the catchment area, (3) a?orestation of 12 % of native p?ramo grasslands10with exotic tree species in recent years. Given the strong temporal variability of precip-itation and stream?ow data related to El Ni?o?Southern Oscillation, we use empiricalmode decomposition techniques to detrend the time series. The long-term increas-ing trend in rainfall is remarkably di?erent from the observed changes in stream?owthat exhibit a decreasing trend. Hence, observed changes in stream?ow are not the15result of long-term climate change but very likely result from direct anthropogenic dis-turbances after land cover change. Partial water budgets for montane cloud forest andp?ramo ecosystems suggest that the strongest changes in evaporative water lossesare observed in p?ramo ecosystems, where progressive colonization and a?orestationof high alpine grasslands leads to a strong increase in transpiration losses.
http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/12/5219/2015/hessd-12-5219-2015.pdf
- Publication Year
- 2015
- Language
- eng
- Topic
- LONG-TERM
FRESHWATER PROVISION
TROPICAL ANDES
LAND COVER CHANGE
- Repository
- Repositorio SENESCYT
- Rights
- openAccess
- License
- openAccess