Ecologists and economists have long talked past each other, but climate change presents similar threats to both groups. Water may serve as the best means of finding a common cause and building a new vision of ecological and economic sustainability, especially in the developing world.
Evidence for the occurrence of ®re in montane cloud forests on both historical and modern time scales has mounted in recent years, yet understanding of ®re regimes and the in¯uence of ®re on the dynamics of these ecosystems remains poor. This chapter discusses current knowledge of the frequency, severity, causes, and impacts of ®re in montane cloud forests worldwide as re¯ected in paleoecological records, recent ®eld studies, and satellite image analyses. Synthesis of the literature suggests that both human activities and climatic¯uctuations have played important and often interlinked roles in determining historical ®re regimes in montane cloud forests. In particular, increasing human populations and land use pressures surrounding cloud forest ecosystems, combined with more rapid climate warming this century due to anthropogenic forcing, is apparently leading to dramatic intensi®cation of ®re regimes in montane cloud forest regions. These changes may be accompanied by the transformation of cloud forests to more ®re-dependent plant communities (comprising species from adjacent ecosystems with more frequent ®re) that no longer have sucient resilience to recover from ®re and re-establish the original cloud forest vegetation. Management eorts need to focus on preventing ®res ignited by people for land use purposes from spreading into adjacent cloud forest areas, as well as actively involving local people and communities in ®re management and suppression eorts. INTRODUCTIONThe role of ®re as a disturbance factor in montane cloud forests (MCFs) has been largely neglected in the ecological literature due to the historically infrequent occurrence of ®re in these typically foggy, cool, and biodiverse ecosystems. Nevertheless,
This article discusses the challenges of managing water resources in the context of climate change. New methods are emerging for climate adaptation in managing water resources, and should begin by implementing practices at the forefront of sound water management, such as environmental flows, integrated water resource management, and the preferential use of “soft” over “hard” infrastructure. The article discusses five elements that should be considered when adapting water management programs to climate change, including: holistically assess hydro‐ecologic effects and vulnerabilities; understand thresholds; pursue “basin thinking,” even if actions are focused on a project scale; approach water management from a multidisciplinary perspective; and, consider the institutional challenges presented by climate change.
<p>The main objective of this study was the evaluation of remote sensing methods that allow for extraction of metrics that link riparian flow regimes to hydro-periods (duration) and -patterns (extent) of wetland systems known to be of critical importance to migratory water fowl and shorebirds along the Pacific Flyway in Mexico. In this study we emphasized the use of freely available and easily accessible optical remote-sensing data and their processing using free and open-source tools.&#160;</p><p>Through application of a set of common and well documented water and vegetation indices on the full Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 record spanning two decades, we created a data set that captures episodic, intra-annual and inter-annual variability in inundation for two contrasting wetland systems. For this study we focussed on the Marismas Nacionales wetland system along the Pacific coast and the Alvarado Lagoon system on the Gulf coast. A comparison of indices designed to extract vegetation and water characteristics from Landsat data (NDVI, EVI, NDWI, Tasseled Cap and MNDWI) led us to conclude that the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) was most effective for identifying inundated areas while the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) worked best for identifying differences in vegetated areas. Our study also established that the high sensitivity to thresholds requires site specific optimization.</p><p>For the study we developed metrics to represent the hydro-pattern and hydro-periodicity of waterbodies in the study areas. The first method provides a metric for the intra-annual and inter-annual <em>permanence</em> of water bodies, while the second method quantifies <em>recurrence</em> of seasonal inundation. The Marismas Nacionales revealed a surprisingly strong and direct relationship between inundated area and gauge meassured discharge of the Rio San Pedro Mezquital. Annual and multi annual hydropatterns in this system are very strong and predictable, and primarily driven by large scale inundation of the delta of this river as it enters Marismas Nacionales. The relationship between discharge and inundated area was so string that the inundated area (up to several hundreds of sqare kilometers during peaks) remained correlated throught the full range of the hydrograph. For this system recurrent inundation patterns and their timing metrics were linked to specific ecosystem types and used to inform a bird conservation planning effort.</p><p>At the Laguna de Alvarado a very different dynamic was observed, where large scale inundation was less frequent, permanent water bodies were much more persistent in space, and the correlation between inundated area and discharge was much weaker. In this region persistent cloud cover was an issue and SAR based approached may be the only way to monitor inundation dynamics more consistently. Earlier studies by WIckel et al for other systems using PALSAR data for wetland systems in Colombia revealed other technical shortcomings of these kinds of data. A study by Colditz et al for wetland systems in Mexico revealed a strong potential of MODIS derived MNDWI data as well. We propose that future efforts explore the possibilties of aplications of combined (optical and SAR) products.</p>
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