COMPARATIVE HYDROLOGY OF THE LARGE SOUTH AMERICAN WETLANDS

Código

XXIV-SBRH0119

Autores

Ayan Santos Fleischmann, Fabrice Papa, LEONARDO LAIPELT DOS SANTOS, ANDERSON LUIS RUHOFF, Rodrigo Cauduro Dias de Paiva, Marcelo Sacardi Biudes, Catherine Prigent, ADRIEN PARIS, Stéphane Calmant, Alex Ovando, Nadja Machado, Walter Collischonn

Tema

SE07.B - Sensoriamento remoto da água: de avanços técnicos-científicos a aplicações na nova era de disponibilidade de informação

Resumo

South America hosts some of the largest rivers on Earth, and major wetland complexes as the Pantanal and Amazon ones, which maximum extent accounts for 5-12% of the continent territory. Yet the hydrologic functioning of many of these wetlands remain poorly described and understood. Here we use state-of-the-art remote sensing datasets (precipitation, surface water extent, total water storage, river and wetlands? water surface elevations and evapotranspiration) to apply a comparative hydrology approach to 12 wetlandscapes in South America, with climates varying from temperate to tropical and equatorial ones. Wetlands associated to river floodplains have a slower flood propagation associated to river routing and feature a higher annual water level amplitude, while the interfluvial ones are more dependent on local runoff and present a faster response of flooding to precipitation events, as well as smaller water level amplitudes. Regarding evapotranspiration, we show that major differences between wetlands and uplands occur in temperate climates (water-limited environments), while in equatorial ones the difference is smaller. Flood propagation along river floodplains is shown to be a major control of evapotranspiration dynamics in wetlands associated with a river flood pulse, especially for the Pantanal where the flood wave takes months to propagate across the system. Our findings highlight the unique hydrological functioning of South America wetlands, and set forward the importance of performing comparative hydrology studies for wetlands worldwide.