Attribution of the river flow growth in the Plata Basin
A regression approach was used to quantitatively estimate the attribution of the notable growth in the river flows of the Plata Basin during 1960-1999. The study was conducted in seven large basins that account for most of the Plata River discharge. Annual rainfall integrated over each basin and ann...
| Autores: | , |
|---|---|
| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2011 |
| País: | Argentina |
| Institución: | Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales |
| Repositorio: | Biblioteca Digital (UBA-FCEN) |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | paperaa:paper_08998418_v31_n15_p2234_Doyle |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_08998418_v31_n15_p2234_Doyle |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Land use change Plata Basin Precipitation River flow Trends Annual rainfall Land-use change Natural forests Northern basins Paraguay Precipitation trends River discharge Three phasis Total rainfall Uruguay Atmospheric pressure Deforestation Evaporation Nickel compounds Phase transitions Precipitation (chemical) Rain Rivers Stream flow Land use El Nino-Southern Oscillation evaporation land use change precipitation (climatology) river discharge river flow streamflow Land Use Nickel Compounds Stream Flow Brazil Paraguay Basin Parana Rio de la Plata Glycine max |
| Sumario: | A regression approach was used to quantitatively estimate the attribution of the notable growth in the river flows of the Plata Basin during 1960-1999. The study was conducted in seven large basins that account for most of the Plata River discharge. Annual rainfall integrated over each basin and annual river flows at their closing points were used for the analysis. The contribution of rainfall changes during each of the three phases of El Niño-Southern Oscillation to total rainfall change in these basins was also calculated. The two main drivers for the generalized growth of the river flows were the increased precipitation and the decreased evaporation attributable to land use change, including deforestation of natural forest and crop switch from sugarcane and coffee trees to soybean. Other evaporation changes played a minor role. There was a north-south gradient in the respective importance of each driver, with land use change having greater weight in the northern basins and the precipitation increase in the southern ones. Thus, in the northern part of the Upper Paraná Basdespite the negative trend in precipitation there was a strong augment of the river flow caused by land use change. The contribution to the positive trend of the stream flows in the middle of the Plata Basin came from both land use change and increased precipitation. Finally, in the south, the Uruguay River flow change was basically due to the precipitation trend that was not only observed during the El Niño phase, but also during the Neutral phase. Only in the Middle Paraguay Basin was the shift to more frequent and intense El Niño events that took place in the 1970s an important factor in the contribution of precipitation to streamflow trends. © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society. |
|---|