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The effects of deforestation and climate variability on the streamflow of the Araguaia River, Brazil

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Abstract

Deforestation changes the hydrological, geomorphological, and biochemical states of streams by decreasing evapotranspiration on the land surface and increasing runoff, river discharge, erosion and sediment fluxes from the land surface. Deforestation has removed about 55% of the native vegetation and significantly altered the hydrological and morphological characteristics of an 82,632 km2 watershed of the Araguaia River in east-central Brazil. Observed discharge increased by 25% from the 1970s to the 1990s and computer simulations suggest that about 2/3 of the increase is from deforestation, the remaining 1/3 from climate variability. Changes of this scale are likely occurring throughout the 2,000,000 km2 savannah region of central Brazil.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Paul Lefebvre in developing figures, Dr. Eric A. Davidson and Wendy Kingerlee’s helpful comments, and Dr. Hewlley Acioli’s help with precipitation data. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for comments that greatly improved the manuscript. Funding was provided by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Land Cover and Land Use Change and LBA-ECO programs, CNPq-Brazil, CYTED, and VITAE Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole Rd, Falmouth, MA, 02540, USA

    M. T. Coe

  2. Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, A3100 GRG, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    E. M. Latrubesse

  3. Instituto de Estudos Sócio-Ambientais (IESA), Universidade Federal de Goiás, 74001-970, Goiânia, GO, Brazil

    M. E. Ferreira

  4. Instituto Nacional de Limnología (INALI), Universidad Nacional del Litoral-CONICET-CC217, 3000, Santa Fe, Argentina

    M. L. Amsler

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  1. M. T. Coe
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  4. M. L. Amsler
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Correspondence to M. T. Coe.

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Coe, M.T., Latrubesse, E.M., Ferreira, M.E. et al. The effects of deforestation and climate variability on the streamflow of the Araguaia River, Brazil. Biogeochemistry 105, 119–131 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-011-9582-2

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