Filiación institucional de autor: Alejo Cochachín Rapre / Autoridad Nacional del Agua - Unidad de Glaciología y Recursos Hídricos (ANA-UGRH), Huaraz, Peru

The Urubamba and Vilcabamba mountain ranges are two geological structures belonging to the Andes in the southern part of Peru, which is located in the tropical region. These mountain ranges are especially located within the transition area between the Amazon region (altitudes close to 1’000 m a.s.l.) and the Andes. These mountains, with a maximum height of 6’280 m a.s.l. (Salkantay Snow Peak in the Vilcabamba range), are characterized by glaciers mainly higher than 5000 m a.s.l. Here we present a study on the evolution of the ice cover based on “Landsat 5” images from 1991 and 2011 is presented in this paper. These data are freely available from the USGS in a georeferenced format and cover a time span of more than 25 years.

Filiación institucional de autor: Alejo Cochachín Rapre /Autoridad Nacional del Agua - Unidad de Glaciología y Recursos Hídricos (ANA-UGRH), Huaraz, Peru

In Peru, about 50% of the energy is produced from hydropower plants. An important amount of this energy is produced with water from glaciated catchments. In these catchments river streamflow is furthermore needed for other socio-economic activities such as agriculture. However, the amount and seasonality of water from glacial melt is expected to undergo strong changes. As glaciers are projected to further decline with continued warming, runoff will become more and more sensitive to possible changes in precipitation patterns. Moreover, as stated by a recent study (Neukom et al., 2015), wet season precipitation sums in the Central Andes could decrease up to 19-33 % by the end of the 21st century compared to present-day conditions. Here, we investigate future runoff availability for selected glacierized catchments in the Peruvian Andes. In a first step, we apply a simplified energy balance ...