Abstract
Abstract The continental water storage is significantly in-fluenced by wetlands, which are highly affected by climate change and anthropogenic influences. The Pantanal, located in the Paraguay river basin, is one of the world’s largest and most important wetlands because of the environmental biodiversity that represents. The satellite gravity mission GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) provided until 2017 time-variable Earth’s gravity field models that reflected the variations due to mass transport processes-like continental water storage changes-which allowed to study environments such as wetlands, at large spatial scales. The water storage variations for the period 2002-2016, by using monthly land water mass grids of Total Water Storage (TWS) derived from GRACE solutions, were evaluated in the Pantanal area. The capability of the GRACE mission for monitoring this particular environment is analyzed, and the comparison of the water mass changes with rainfall and hydrometric heights data at different stations distributed over the Pantanal region was carried out. Additionally, the correlation between the TWS and river gauge measurements, and the phase differences for these variables, were also evaluated. Results show two distinct zones: high correlations and low phase shifts at the north, and smaller correlation values and consequently significant phase differences towards the south. This situation is mainly related to the hydrogeological domains of the area.
Highlights
The Pantanal is a wetland that reached an international focus position because of its unique socio-environmental characteristics
The present study proposes the temporal and spatial analysis of the water storage variability in the Pantanal region from 2002 to 2016, by using land water mass grids of Total Water Storage (TWS) obtained from monthly GRACE solutions provided by the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA)
The annual cycle, its phase, as well as the correlation between GRACE TWS and in-situ data sets are evaluated in this research
Summary
The Pantanal is a wetland that reached an international focus position because of its unique socio-environmental characteristics This system, considered for the UNESCO as a World Heritage and a Biosphere Reserve, and recognized for the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Ramsar, is extremely a ected by human activities – e.g. cattle industry, agriculture, shing, tourism- and the e ects of the climate change. The Upper Paraguay basin, where the Pantanal is located, has undergone a considerable loss of terrestrial ecosystems (40%) and presents an environmental risk (CIC 2016). This region, in particular the Brazilian Pantanal, is mainly dominated by the hydrologic cycle. The knowledge of this region is very important for the biodiversity conservation and minimization of the anthropogenic activities
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