Change of vegetable coverage impact in the erosion of the nevado de Toluca

Abstract

The climatic change implies the spatial and temporal alteration of climatic variables such as temperature and precipitation which, in a hydrological way, imply extreme rain-draining events that produce human, economic and ecological losses in the lower part of the basins. It change the hydrological cycle to. For this reason, the study of basins is required in Mexico as a fundamental unit to identify the effect that climate change causes on its hydrological characteristics and to propose mitigation actions. This study evaluated the impact of climate change on water erosion by using the map algebra technique implementing a hydrological model adapted from the Universal Soil Loss Equation (EUPS) and a multitime series of multispectral images LANDSAT and SPOT of the decade of 1980 and 2010. The work was carried out in 52 subwathershed located around the Nevado de Toluca Volcano. The results showed that 36 sub-watersheds present an average increase in the erosion rate of 43.9%, which is associated with the loss of vegetation cover due to fires, anthropogenic work and increased desertification. The remaining 16 showed decrement because they had favorable change in land use and therefore in their hydrological condition. These effects are related to the increase in the values of the climatic variables in recent years.