Estimating components of the hydrological cycle in the Atlantic Forest Biome using the INLAND surface model

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Atlantic Forest biome has lost a significant portion of its natural habitat and little research has studied how deforestation impacts the biome’s local water balance. The objective of this research is to understand how the hydrological cycle of the region is affected by the change in land use. For this, the INLAND (Integrated Model of Surface Processes) surface model was calibrated and validated for the biome. Subsequently, changes in precipitation in the biome and the influence of deforestation on the surface components of the hydrological cycle were analyzed. To determine the influence of deforestation on the surface components of the hydrological cycle, two scenarios were simulated and compared, a deforestation scenario and a pasture scenario. The results showed that the total runoff in the deforestation scenario between 1951–1960 was, on average, 16.82% lower than the values found from 1971 to 1980. The use of modeling also made it possible to estimate the behavior of the difference between evapotranspiration and total runoff simulated with the occurrence of deforestation and with the area preserved in its entirety. It was observed that the biome has a certain resilience to deforestation up to a particular point, after which evapotranspiration decreases and the total runoff increases.