Exploring hydrologic connections between tropical mountain wetlands and glacier recession in Peru's Cordillera Blanca

Abstract

Receding mountain glaciers affect the hydrology of downslope ecosystems with consequences for drinking water, agriculture, and hydropower production. Here we combined land cover derived from satellite imagery and other environmental data from the northern Peruvian Andes into a first differencing regression model to assess wetland hydrologic connectivity. Wetland area was considered the response variable and a variety of land cover, climatic, and stream discharge explanatory variables were tested to evaluate effects of possible hydrologic connectivity. The results indicate that there were two primary spatial driving forces of wetland change in Peru's Cordillera Blanca from 1987 to 1995: 1) loss in glacier area was associated with increased wetland area, controlling for other factors; while 2) an increase in mean annual stream discharge in the previous 12 months increased wetland area. The general approach we used expands the ways that connectivity between landscape changes and hydrologic and ecosystem processes can be assessed.