Impacts of floods and droughts on aquatic macrophytes, forests, and fisheries of central Amazonian river floodplains

Leandro Castello, Virginia Tech, leandro@vt.edu (Presenter)
Marcia Macedo, Columbia University, mnm2115@columbia.edu
John Melack, University of California, melack@lifesci.ucsb.edu
Michael T Coe, WHRC, mtcoe@whrc.org
Laura L. Hess, Earth Research Institute, University of California, lola@eri.ucsb.edu
Peter B. Bayley, Consultant, pbbayley@osu.edu
Bernardo Flores, Wageningen University, mflores.bernardo@gmail.com

About 20% of the Amazon basin is seasonally inundated, and these wetlands are sites of intense biological activity with highly productive macrophytes, forests, and fisheries. Floodplains and river channels—maintained by seasonal inundation—promote nutrient cycling and high biological production, and support diverse biological communities as well as human populations with one of the highest per capita rates of fish consumption. However, the hydrology of Amazon river-floodplains is increasingly being impacted by extreme climatic events and land use changes in the uplands. The extreme droughts of 2005 and 2010 and the extreme flood of 2009 provide an excellent opportunity to understand the feedbacks of such extreme events on seasonal inundation and, ultimately, on the future productivity of floodplain ecosystems and associated ecosystem services. This project will investigate these complex feedbacks using an interdisciplinary research approach that combines remote sensing, ground observations, statistical modeling, and numerical simulation models. Our study area is the central region of the Amazon Basin. We will address the following research objectives: (1) Assess the historical and potential future impacts of droughts and floods on floodplain hydrology and inundation dynamics; (2) Evaluate the impact of droughts and floods on fishery yields; (3) Quantify the impact of droughts and floods on aquatic macrophyte productivity; and (4) Assess the impact of droughts and floods on the productivity of flooded forests.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Theme 4: Human influence on global ecosystems   (Mon 4:30 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Castello, Leandro: Impacts of floods and droughts on aquatic macrophytes, forests, and fisheries of central Amazonian river floodplains ...details

Poster Location ID: 93