Anthropogenic and Climate Effects on a Free Dam Tropical River: Measuring the Contributions on Flow Regime

Verônica Bernardes de Souza Léo, Hersília de Andrade e Santos, Letícia Cristina Oliveira Pereira and Lilia Maria de Oliveira
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Verônica Bernardes de Souza Léo: Post-Graduation Program in Civil Engineering, Campus II, Federal Center of Tecnological Education of Minas Gerais, Minas Gerais 30510-000, Brazil
Hersília de Andrade e Santos: Post-Graduation Program in Civil Engineering, Campus II, Federal Center of Tecnological Education of Minas Gerais, Minas Gerais 30510-000, Brazil
Letícia Cristina Oliveira Pereira: Departament of Civil Engineering, Campus II, Federal Center of Tecnological Education of Minas Gerais, Minas Gerais 30510-000, Brazil
Lilia Maria de Oliveira: Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Campus I, Federal Center of Tecnological Education of Minas Gerais, Minas Gerais 30421-169, Brazil

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 23, 1-17

Abstract: The demand for freshwater resources and climate change pose a simultaneous threat to rivers. Those impacts are often analyzed separately, and some human impacts are widely evaluated in river dynamics—especially in downstream areas rather than the consequences of land cover changes in headwater reaches. The distinction between anthropogenic and climate on the components of the flow regime is proposed here for an upstream free dam reach whose watershed is responsible for the water supply in Rio de Janeiro. Indicators of hydrologic alteration (IHA) and the range of variability approach (RVA) combined with statistical analyses of anthropogenic and climate parameters indicated that (1) four river flow components (magnitude, frequency, duration, and rate of change) were greatly altered from the previous period (1947 to 1967) and the actual (1994 to 2014); (2) shifts in the sea surface temperature of the Atlantic correlated with flow magnitude; (3) the cattle activity effects on the flow regime of the studied area decreased 42.6% of superficial discharge; global climate change led to a 10.8% reduction in the same river component. This research indicated that climate change will impact the intensification of human actions on rivers in the southeast Brazilian headwaters.

Keywords: flow regime indicators; tropical headwaters; climate change; human impact (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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