Assessment of the effects of climate variability and land use change on the water resources based on spatial-temporal modeling: Paraíba do Sul River Basin

Abstract

Brazil will be profoundly impacted by projected climate changes in the future needs to establish national and regional strategies for vulnerability assessments and adaptation measures to cope with climate change. Emphasis on climate extremes and their impacts on water resources would be a first approach of mapping risk and vulnerabilities in Brazil. Paraiba do Sul River Basin (PSRB) is one of most important basin in Brazil linking two major metropolitan centers of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Several authors showed that availability of water resources in the PSRB has decreased in the last years. On the other hand, land use has changed significantly in this basin. Cities continue to expand near, or on alluvial plains contributing to the elimination of wetland ecosystems and reduction of agriculture areas (rice irrigation). Another important regional issue is the expansion of eucalyptus plantation replacing degraded pasture especially in the mountainous regions. Therefore, the general aim of this research is to improve the understanding of the hydrological response of a large river basin to climate variability and land use change using geotechnologies tools and hydrological models HEC-HMS). The expected results of the project on the short term are: a) Investigate the impacts of climate change on water resources in the Paraiba do Sul Basin using interfaces for hydrologic modeling (time series data and ArcHydro geodatabase); b) Evaluate spatial land use changes over the last 30 years using remote sensing and GIS; c) Analyze how different scenarios of land use change stress or enhance the water resources availability. (AU)