Hydrometeorological processes in a multi-instrumented watershed in Serra da Mantiqueira

Abstract

The soil-vegetation system can exert a significant influence on the surface water availability regime, as in transient flow peaks, and in the regularization of the minimum drought flow, due to the potential effects in the case of forest vegetation in attenuating the intensity of the rain reaching the soil and to the increase of water infiltration and storage in the soil and in the shallow aquifer, as well as to reduce the average annual flow through the increase of losses by evapotranspiration. But these impacts depend on other conditions such as weather and climate, topography, geological conformations and intrinsic characteristics of the soil, which make each basin a unique system. In Serra da Mantiqueira, the Ribeirão das Posses Basin, Extrema, MG, was subjected in some specific areas to the management of forest restoration in the vicinity of springs, riparian strip and selected hillside sub-basins, by actions of the Municipal Conservative Water Program and the Federal Water Producer Program/ANA. In particular, that basin is located at the head of the Cantareira reservoir system, which has strategic importance in supplying millions of people, which highlights the scientific interest in understanding the patterns of water gains and losses in the region, framed as a typical basin of the tributaries of the Jaguari River, the tributary of the largest reservoir in the system. As a way to assist the assessment of hydrological processes in the climate conditions, geology and vegetation typical of Serra da Mantiqueira, where possible water ecosystem services or tradeoffs that penalize water availability can be evaluated, this proposal aims to investigate the dynamics of surface hydrological processes in a typical basin of the region, with the use of a wide spectrum of multi-instrumental measurement in the field. It seeks to quantify the spatio-temporal dynamics and interaction characteristics of the components of the water balance, in order to correctly understand the hydrological regime in those areas of springs, to assist in the understanding of the control of the soil-vegetation system as in the cases of forest restoration , and to subsidize information that helps forecast water availability in the conditions of global climate change projections. This proposal is one of the goals of the FAPESP thematic project 2015/50682-6 "ClimateWise: climate smart watershed investments in the montane tropics of South America" (effective June 2016-March 2020), until then financed as a direct doctoral quota for the thematic until March/2020, but that can still be extended for 6 months according to limits defined by FAPESP, in the time that we deem necessary for consolidation of calculations, production of scientific articles and deposit of the thesis for defense. (AU)