Long-term effects of climate and land cover change on freshwater provision in the tropical Andes

Abstract

Andean headwater catchments play a pivotal role to supply fresh water for downstream water users. However, few long-term studies exist on the relative importance of climate change and direct anthropogenic perturbations on flow regimes. In this paper, we assess multi-decadal change in freshwater provision based on long time series (1974–2008) of hydrometeorological data and land cover reconstructions for a 282 km2 catchment located in the tropical Andes. Three main land cover change trajectories can be distinguished: (1) rapid decline of native vegetation in montane forest and páramo ecosystems in ~1/5 or 20% of the catchment area, (2) expansion of agricultural land by 14% of the catchment area, (3) afforestation of 12% of native páramo grasslands with exotic tree species in recent years. Given the strong temporal variability of precipitation and streamflow data related to El Niño–Southern Oscillation, we use empirical mode decomposition techniques to detrend the time series. The long-term increasing trend in rainfall is remarkably different from the observed changes in streamflow that exhibit a decreasing trend. Hence, observed changes in streamflow are not the result of long-term climate change but very likely result from direct anthropogenic disturbances after land cover change. Partial water budgets for montane cloud forest and páramo ecosystems suggest that the strongest changes in evaporative water losses are observed in páramo ecosystems, where progressive colonization and afforestation of high alpine grasslands leads to a strong increase in transpiration losses.