In this article, we propose an investigation of the modifications of the hydrological response of two Peruvian Amazonas-Andes basins in relationship with the modifications of the precipitation and evapotranspiration rates inferred by the IPCC. These two basins integrate around 10% of the total area of the Amazonian basin. These estimations are based on the application of two monthly hydrological models, GR2M and MWB3, and the climatic projections come from BCM2, CSMK3 and MIHR models for A1B and B1 emission scenarios (SCE A1B and SCE B1). Projections are approximated by two simple scenarios (anomalies and horizon) and annual rainfall rates, evapotranspiration rates and discharge were estimated for the 2020s (2008-2040), 2050s (2041-2070) and 2080s (2071-2099). Annual discharge shows increasing trend over Requena basin (Ucayali river), Puerto Inca basin (Pachitea river), Tambo basin (Tamb...

The hydroclimatology of the Peruvian Amazon-Andes basin (PAB) which surface corresponding to 7% of the Amazon basin is still poorly documented. We propose here an extended and original analysis of the temporal evolution of monthly rainfall, mean temperature (Tmean), maximum temperature (Tmax) and minimum temperature (Tmin) time series over two PABs (Huallaga and Ucayali) over the last 40years. This analysis is based on a new and more complete database that includes 77 weather stations over the 1965-2007 period, and we focus our attention on both annual and seasonal meteorological time series. A positive significant trend in mean temperature of 0.09°C per decade is detected over the region with similar values in the Andes and rainforest when considering average data. However, a high percentage of stations with significant Tmean positive trends are located over the Andes region. Finally, ...

Hydro-sedimentology development is a great challenge in Peru due to limited data as well as sparse and confidential information. This study aimed to quantify and to understand the suspended sediment yield from the west-central Andes Mountains and to identify the main erosion-control factors and their relevance. The Tablachaca River (3132 km2) and the Santa River (6815 km²), located in two adjacent Andes catchments, showed similar statistical daily rainfall and discharge variability but large differences in specific suspended-sediment yield (SSY). In order to investigate the main erosion factors, daily water discharge and suspended sediment concentration (SSC) datasets of the Santa and Tablachaca rivers were analysed. Mining activity in specific lithologies was identified as the major factor that controls the high SSY of the Tablachaca (2204 t km² yr⁻¹), which is four times greater t...

According to the Peruvian agricultural ministry, the Pacific watersheds where the great cities and intense farming are located only benefit from 1% of the available freshwater in Peru. Hence a thorough knowledge of the hydrology of this region is of particular importance. In the paper, analysis of this region and of the two other main Peruvian drainages, the Titicaca and Amazonas are reported. Rainfall and runoff data collected by the Peruvian National Service of Meteorology and Hydrology (SENAMHI) and controlled under the Hydrogeodynamics of the Amazon Basin (HyBAm) project is the basis of this basin-scale study that covers the 1969–2004 period. Beyond the strong contrasting rainfall conditions that differentiate the dry coastal basins and the wet eastern lowlands, details are given about in situ runoff and per basin rainfall distribution in these regions, and about their different al...

Global land surface models (LSMs) such as the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) are originally developed to provide surface boundary conditions for climate models. They are increasingly used for hydrological simulation, for instance to simulate the impacts of land use changes and other perturbations on the water cycle. This study investigates how well such models represent the major hydrological fluxes at the relevant spatial and temporal scales-an important question for reliable model applications in poorly understood, data-scarce environments. The JULES-LSM is implemented in a 360 000 km2 humid tropical mountain basin of the Peruvian Andes-Amazon at 12-km grid resolution, forced with daily satellite and climate reanalysis data. The simulations are evaluated using conventional discharge-based evaluation methods, and by further comparing the magnitude and internal variability o...

El Perú presenta aproximadamente el 10% del total de la Cuenca Amazónica y se caracteriza por ser la región con menor distribución de estaciones de lluvia, sobre todo en la Selva baja. Nosotros comparamos el producto 3B43 del Tropical Lluvia Measuring Mission (TRMM) con estaciones climatológicas en dos subcuencas (Urubamba y Tambo) del río Ucayali. La distribución espacial del producto 3B43 es de 0.25° × 0.25° (~. 27.8 × 27.8 km) y los datos son a nivel mensual. El periodo de comparación entre in-situ estaciones de lluvia y 3B43 TRMM son de Enero de 1998 a Diciembre del 2007. Comparaciones entre in-situ estaciones de lluvias observados y 3B43 fue realizado utilizando coeficiente de correlación y error relativo. Una mejora de los datos de lluvia del TRMM es luego propuesto basado en in-situ datos de lluvia. Luego del análisis del producto 3B43, 3 sets de datos de lluvia fuer...

La cuenca Amazónica peruana es el lugar donde nace el río Amazonas, y está caracterizada por presentar diferentes condiciones fisiográficas e hidroclimatológicas. Las variables componentes del ciclo hidrológico en esta zona son a la fecha desconocidas debido a las condiciones inaccesibles de la zona y por presentar regiones rurales incomunicadas. Durante los últimos años se ha comenzado a recolectar información así como realizar mediciones de caudales (aforos) de los ríos Ucayali y Marañón. Estas mediciones y la recolección de información hidrometeorológica ha hecho posible desarrollar estudios específicos de balances hídricos y se ha intentado realizar modelos hidrológicos para el periodo 1978-1999. En el presente trabajo se desarrollan modelos de balance hídrico de la cuenca del río Ucayali hasta la estación Requena a paso de tiempo mensual, tomando en consideraci...

In this work, the authors analyze the origin of the extreme floods in the Peruvian Amazonas River during the 1970-2012 period, focusing on the recent April 2012 flooding (55400m3 s-1). Several hydrological variables, such as rainfall, terrestrial water storage, and discharge, point out that the unprecedented 2012 flood is mainly related to an early and abundant wet season over the north of the basin. Thus, the peak of the Marañón River, the northern contributor of the Amazonas, occurred sooner than usual (in April instead of May), coinciding with the peak of the Ucayali River, the southern contributor. This concomitance caused a dramatic flood downstream in the Peruvian Amazonas. These results are compared to the amplitude and timing of the three most severe extreme floods (1970-2011). The analysis of the climatic features related to the most important floods (1986, 1993, 1999, and 201...

Presentado en: Encuentro Científico Internacional de Invierno de Lima (Perú), 31 de julio al 2 de agosto de 2013. Organizado por diversos organismos de investigación peruanos.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission 3B42 precipitation estimates are widely used in tropical regions for hydrometeorological research. Recently, version 7 of the product was released. Major revisions to the algorithm involve the radar reflectivity-rainfall rate relationship, surface clutter detection over high terrain, a new reference database for the passive microwave algorithm, and a higher-quality gauge analysis product for monthly bias correction. To assess the impacts of the improved algorithm, the authors compare the version 7 and the older version 6 products with data from 263 rain gauges in and around the northern Peruvian Andes. The region covers humid tropical rain forest, tropical mountains, and arid-to-humid coastal plains. The authors find that the version 7 product has a significantly lower bias and an improved representation of the rainfall distribution. They further e...

This study compares two nonparametric rainfall data merging methods-the mean bias correction and double-kernel smoothing-with two geostatistical methods-kriging with external drift and Bayesian combination-for optimizing the hydrometeorological performance of a satellite-based precipitation product over a mesoscale tropical Andean watershed in Peru. The analysis is conducted using 11 years of daily time series from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) research product (also TRMM 3B42) and 173 rain gauges from the national weather station network. The results are assessed using 1) a cross-validation procedure and 2) a catchment water balance analysis and hydrological modeling. It is found that the double-kernel smoothing method delivered the most consistent improvement over the original satellite product in both the cross-validation a...

This work provides an initial overview of climate features and their related hydrological impacts during the recent extreme droughts (1995, 1998, 2005 and 2010) in the upper Solimes River (western Amazon), using comprehensive in situ discharge and rainfall datasets. The droughts are generally associated with positive SST anomalies in the tropical North Atlantic and weak trade winds and water vapor transport toward the upper Solimes, which, in association with increased subsidence over central and southern Amazon, explain the lack of rainfall and very low discharge values. But in 1998, toward the end of the 1997-98 El Nio event, the drought is more likely related to an anomalous divergence of water vapor in the western Amazon that is characteristic of a warm event in the Pacific. During the austral spring and winter of 2010, the most severe drought since the seventies has been registered ...

The dissolved load of the Amazon River is generally considered to be lowlyimpacted by anthropogenic activities. In this work, based on the chemical and hydrologicaldatabase of the Environmental Research Observatory—HYBAM (http://www.ore-hybam.org), we explore the importance of the Peruvian Foreland petroleum activity on the dis-solved Na and Cl fluxes of the Amazon River. The main result of this study allows ussuggesting that oil extraction activity, concentrated in the El Tigre River basin, a small foreland watershed in the Peruvian Amazon, influenced drastically the Na and Cl expor-tation of the Amazon River during the 2006–2007 period. During these years, the dis-solved exportations of this basin represented almost 20 % of the annual dissolved ClAmazon flux and almost 12 % of the annual dissolved Na Amazon flux for a mean annualdischarge\1 % of the Amazon River discharge. Since th...

The impact of a changing climate on the Amazon basin is a subject of intensive research because of its rich biodiversity and the significant role of rainforests in carbon cycling. Climate change has also a direct hydrological impact, and increasing efforts have focused on understanding the hydrological dynamics at continental and subregional scales, such as the Western Amazon. New projections from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 ensemble indicate consistent climatic warming and increasing seasonality of precipitation in the Peruvian Amazon basin. Here we use a distributed land surface model to quantify the potential impact of this change in the climate on the hydrological regime of the upper Amazon river. Using extreme value analysis, historical and future projections of the annual minimum, mean, and maximum river flows are produced for a range of return periods betwee...

The erosion and transport of sediments allow us to understand many activities of significance, such as crust evolution, climate change, uplift rates, continental processes, the biogeochemical cycling of pollutants and nutrients. The Amazon basin of Peru has contrasting physiographic and climatic characteristics between the Andean piedmont and the plains and between the north and south of the basin which is why there are 8 gauging stations located along the principal rivers of the Andean piedmont (Marañón, Huallaga, Ucayali) and the plain (Marañón, Tigre, Napo, Ucayali and Amazon rivers). Since 2003, the ORE-Hybam (IRD-SENAMHI-UNALM) observatory has performed out regular measurements at strategic points of the Amazon basin to understand and model the systems, behavior and long-term dynamics. On the Andean piedmont, the suspended yields are governed by a simple model with a relationshi...

The use of satellite imagery to assess river sediment discharge is discussed in the context of poorly monitored basins. For more than three decades, the Peruvian hydrological service SENAMHI has been maintaining several gauging stations in the lower part of the Amazon River catchment. This network has been recently supplemented by the Hydro-geodynamics of the Amazon Basin (HYBAM) program, which has a water quality monitoring network distributed over five locations and allows the assessment of river discharge and surface suspended sediment (SSS) concentration. In this paper, the three stations that are located near the confluence of the Marañon and Ucayali Rivers, which form the Amazon River, are reviewed in detail. Two of the stations provide a complete time series of 10-day SSS samples over the studied period. The third station, along the Ucayali River, failed to provide valid estimate...

La variabilidad de las precipitaciones en la cuenca amazónica (CA) es analizada para el período 1964-2003. Este análisis está basado en 756 estaciones pluviométricas distribuidas en todos los países de la cuenca incluyendo datos de Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador y Colombia. En particular, la reciente disponibilidad de datos de precipitación de los países andinos hace posible completar estudios anteriores. Se subraya el impacto de la cordillera de los Andes sobre las lluvias. La mayor precipitación en la CA es observada en regiones bajas expuestas a los vientos húmedos del este, y menor lluvia es registrada en las estaciones de altura y protegidas por las primeras montañas de los Andes de los vientos húmedos del este. Además, los regímenes de las precipitaciones son más diversificados en las regiones andinas que en el llano amazónico. La variabilidad espacio-temporal de las preci...

Rainfall variability in the Amazon basin (AB) is analysed for the 1964-2003 period. It is based on 756 pluviometric stations distributed throughout the AB countries. For the first time it includes data from Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. In particular, the recent availability of rainfall data from the Andean countries makes it possible to complete previous studies. The impact of mountain ranges on rainfall is pointed out. The highest rainfall in the AB is observed in low windward regions, and low rainfall is measured in leeward and elevated stations. Additionally, rainfall regimes are more diversified in the Andean regions than in the lowlands. Rainfall spatio-temporal variability is studied based on a varimax-rotated principal component analysis (PCA). Long-term variability with a decreasing rainfall since the 1980s prevails in June-July-August (JJA) and September-October-Novembe...

The suspended sediment yield and associated current denudation rates of eight large catchments located along the eastern range of the central Andes have been determined. The catchments have been chosen as mountainous and mainly denudational basins to avoid sediment sinks that could bias our analysis. Discharge data and suspended sediment concentrations measured at each catchment outlet have been combined to produce average annual sediment fluxes and thus yields and current denudation rates over time spans of 2–43 years. Denudation rates range between 0.25 and 1.20 mm yr−1 with a north to south gradient. Maximum values are observed in Bolivian catchments. A correlation analysis has been carried out to determine the main controlling factors of current denudation rates at the catchments spatial scale. Climatic, topographic and lithologic parameters have been studied. Our results suggest...

Because of climate change, much attention is drawn to the Amazon River basin, whose hydrology has already been strongly affected by extreme events during the past 20 years. Hydrological annual extreme variations (i.e. low/high flows) associated with precipitation (and evapotranspiration) changes are investigated over the Amazon River sub-basins using the land surface model ORCHIDEE and a multimodel approach. Climate change scenarios from up to eight AR4 Global Climate Models based on three emission scenarios were used to build future hydrological projections in the region, for two periods of the 21st century. For the middle of the century under the SRESA1B scenario, no change is found in high flow on the main stem of the Amazon River (Obidos station), but a systematic discharge decrease is simulated during the recession period, leading to a 10% low-flow decrease. Contrasting discharge va...