The Role of Land Cover in the Propagation of Rainfall Into Streamflow Trends

The replacement of natural forests with agriculture is generally associated with modifications in the hydrological behavior of a basin. This is particularly notable in the tropics and subtropics. Southern Brazil is a region with extensive agricultural production, forest conservation, and a vast unex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water resources research 2018-09, Vol.54 (9), p.5986-6004
Main Authors: Chagas, V. B. P., Chaffe, P. L. B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural production
Agriculture
Annual rainfall
Anthropogenic factors
Basins
Duration
Extensive farming
Forest conservation
Forest management
Forests
Gauges
Hydrologic data
Hydrology
Land cover
Maxima
Maximum flow
Maximum rainfall
Propagation
Rain
Rainfall
Rainfall regime
Rainfall trends
Seasonal variations
Seasonality
Statistical analysis
Statistical significance
Stream discharge
Stream flow
Streamflow data
Streamflow regime
Streamflow trends
Trends
Tropical environments
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Summary:The replacement of natural forests with agriculture is generally associated with modifications in the hydrological behavior of a basin. This is particularly notable in the tropics and subtropics. Southern Brazil is a region with extensive agricultural production, forest conservation, and a vast unexplored streamflow data despite substantial rainfall trends observed in recent decades. In this work, we explore trends in the streamflow regime in the majority of the monitored basins in Southern Brazil. Additionally, we evaluate if pristine forested basins and agricultural nonforested basins have significantly different streamflow responses to changes in rainfall. We analyzed annual averages, maxima, minima, and seasonality of a 36‐year data set (1975–2010) of 675 rainfall and 140 streamflow gauges. Results reveal that large trends are widespread in Southern Brazil, especially in basins with areas smaller than 10,000 km2. Changes in the rainfall regime did not directly translate into changes in the streamflow regime. Changes in the annual maximum flow of forested basins were not statistically significant even when the annual average and maximum rainfall increased significantly. Correlations between changes in rainfall and streamflow for two indices, namely, duration of low‐magnitude events and seasonality, were statistically significant (p 
ISSN:0043-1397
1944-7973
DOI:10.1029/2018WR022947