Assessment of climate change on the future water levels of the Iberá wetlands, Argentina, during the twenty-first century

Abstract

The Iberá wetlands, located in La Plata Basin, is a fragile ecosystem habitat of several species of flora and fauna and it also constitutes one of the largest inland freshwater of the world. In this study, the hydroclimatologic response to projected climatic changes in the Iberá wetlands is assessed. Bias corrected temperature and precipitation data from four Regional Climate Models (RCMs) developed for the CLARIS-LPB project were used to drive the calibrated variable infiltration capacity (VIC) hydrological model for different time slices. Derived future scenarios consist on changes in temperature, precipitation and water level of the Iberá Lake for the periods 2021–2040 and 2071–2090 with respect to present. All RCMs are consistent in predicting a warming for the near future (0–2°C) and also to the end of the century (1.5–4.5°C) in the study region, but differ in the sign and percentage of precipitation changes. VIC modelling results suggest that the Iberá Lake level could increase in the twenty-first century and that this increment would be higher in the summer months. Nevertheless, the projected 10 cm of water-level increase could be not so relevant as it is of the same order of magnitude than the observed interdecadal variability of the system.

Keywords:

• Wetland hydrology simulation
• climate change
• Iberá wetlands
• VIC hydrologic model

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under Grant Agreement N° 212492, the University of Buenos Aires UBACYT- 20020100100803 and 20020100300067, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas PIP2009-00444 and Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica PICT07-00400 and PICT-2012-2403.