Analysis of water mass variations at wetlands regions from GRACE: the Pantanal case

CECILIA CORNERO; AYELEN PEREIRA; ANA CRISTINA OLIVEIRA CANCORO DE MATOS; MARÍA CRISTINA PACINO

Rosario

Simposio; 1er Simposio Internacional de GEOMÁTICA APLICADA y SOLUCIONES GEOESPACIALES GEODATA2017; 2017

Fac. de Cs. Exactas, Ing. y Agrimensura, Universidad Nacional de Rosario

PRESENTACIÓN ORAL Y POSTERThe natural heritage of biodiversity of the Paraguayriver basin is subject to potential impacts due to climate change. To monitor theseenvironments at large spatial scales, the satellite gravity mission GRACE(Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) provides time-variable Earth?sgravity field models that reflect the variations due to mass transportprocesses, like continental water storage changes. The purpose of this work isto analyze the spatial and temporal water storage changes for period 2003-2014using the Equivalent Water Height (EWH) derived from the GRACE solutions in thePantanal region, one of the most immense and biologically rich environments ofthe planet.The comparisonwith EWH and river gauge data ​​at different stations distributed over thePantanal area was carried out. In order to validate the satellite results, thecorrelation analysis between the water mass changes and river gaugemeasurements was obtained, and also the phase differences were analyzed. Highcorrelations were detected at the north, and lower ones towards the south ofthe Pantanal. The EWH were alsocontrasted with soil moisture from GLDAS (Global Land Data Assimilation System)and rainfall from GPCP (Global Precipitation Climatology Project). A good agreementbetween EWH and rainfall was observed, but a delay of 3 months in the firstvariable was found (R2 coefficient was 0.67). A betteradjustment of the EWH results was found for the soil moisture signal, particularlyin the seasonal behavior; a phase shift was also detected but in this caseresulting in a lower time period (15 days to 2 months).