Ecohydrological dynamics of tropical watersheds in response to land use and climate changes

Qiong Gao, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, q.gao@ites.upr.edu
Mei Yu, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, meiyu@ites.upr.edu (Presenter)

Both land use and climate changes can alter the ecohydrological processes in coastal wetlands and their vicinity, and the Globwetlands project emphasizes the importance of integrated analysis at watershed scales. We propose an integrated modeling effort to address the vulnerability of coastal wetlands to changed land use and climate, by adopting the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) watershed model, which will then be coupled with the CLUE-s (Conversion of Land Use and its Effect) land use model.

SWAT is an ecohydrological model to simulate the interaction between the biological component and the hydrological cycle within a watershed ecosystem. We parameterize the model for the watersheds of Rio Espiritu Santo, Rio Grande de Loiza near Caguas, Rio Guanajibo at Hormiqueros, Rio Gurabo near C, aguas, Rio Fajado, and Rio Gulebrinas. These watersheds represent the landscape-scale ecosystems of great-rainfall in northeast, moderate-rainfall in central mountains, and low-rainfall in southwest.

The simulated water discharges from the watersheds caught the major storms and droughts events, and agreed well with the monitored USGS water discharge measurement. The water flows at the watershed outlets (after considering the difference in watershed size, precipitation regime, and topography) are significantly affected by the land use/cover changes, e.g. reduced by the increase in forest cover but enhanced by the expansion of urban cover, which supports our hypothesis that the LCLUC and climate significantly influence the ecohydrological processes at the watershed scale.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  General Contributions   (Tue 4:35 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Yu, Mei: Vulnerability and adaptive management of tropical coastal wetlands ...details

Poster Location ID: 263