The imprint of plants on the hydrology of dry mountains of southern South America

POCA MARÍA

Conferencia; Distinguished Lecture Series on Experimental Hydrology for Beijing Normal University; 2020

Understanding how plants influence water fluxes is critical in a world where climate and vegetation change at an accelerating rate. This allows not only the opportunity to project possible changes, but also to provide landscape management tools to improve water supply. The mountains of central Argentina have a markedly seasonal climate and provide invaluable hydrological services to lowland inhabitants who rely on them. Herbivory and fire shape mountains vegetation cover and soils in this region. Through approaches at different scales (landscape, catchment, and plot) and using various tools (satellite images, digital elevation models, vegetation and soil field measurements, classical hydrological measurements, sap flow sensors and isotopic tracing), results on the role of vegetation shaping ecohydrological processes of this region will be shown.