For half a century, the process of economic integration of the Amazon has been based on intensive use of renewable and nonrenewable natural resources, which has brought significant basin-wide environmental alterations. The rural development in the Amazonia pushed the agricultural frontier swiftly, resulting in widespread land-cover change, but agriculture in the Amazon has been of low productivity and unsustainable. The loss of biodiversity and continued deforestation will lead to high risks of irreversible change of its tropical forests. It has been established by modeling studies that the Amazon may have two "tipping points," namely, temperature increase of 4°C or deforestation exceeding 40% of the forest area. If transgressed, large-scale "savannization" of mostly southern and eastern Amazon may take place. The region has warmed about 1°C over the last 60 y, and total deforestation is reaching 20% of the forested area. The recent significant reductions in deforestation-80% reduction in the Brazilian Amazon in the last decade-opens up opportunities for a novel sustainable development paradigm for the future of the Amazon. We argue for a new development paradigm-away from only attempting to reconcile maximizing conservation versus intensification of traditional agriculture and expansion of hydropower capacity-in which we research, develop, and scale a high-tech innovation approach that sees the Amazon as a global public good of biological assets that can enable the creation of innovative high-value products, services, and platforms through combining advanced digital, biological, and material technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in progress.Amazon tropical forests | Amazon sustainability | Amazon land use | Amazon savannization | climate change impacts

a b s t r a c tWe investigated the seasonal patterns of Amazonian forest photosynthetic activity, and the effects thereon of variations in climate and land-use, by integrating data from a network of ground-based eddy flux towers in Brazil established as part of the 'Large-Scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia' project. We found that degree of water limitation, as indicated by the seasonality of the ratio of sensible to latent heat flux (Bowen ratio) predicts seasonal patterns of photosynthesis. In equatorial Amazonian forests (5• N-5 • S), water limitation is absent, and photosynthetic fluxes (or gross ecosystem productivity, GEP) exhibit high or increasing levels of photosynthetic activity as the dry season progresses, likely a consequence of allocation to growth of new leaves. In contrast, forests along the southern flank of the Amazon, pastures converted from forest, and mixed forest-grass savanna, exhibit dry-season declines in GEP, consistent with increasing degrees of water limitation. Although previous work showed tropical ecosystem evapotranspiration (ET) is driven by incoming radiation, GEP observations reported here surprisingly show no or negative relationships with photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). Instead, GEP fluxes largely followed the phenology of canopy photosynthetic capacity (Pc), with only deviations from this primary pattern driven by variations in PAR. Estimates of leaf flush at three * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 520 6261500; fax: +1 520 621 9190. 182-183 (2013) 128-144 129 non-water limited equatorial forest sites peak in the dry season, in correlation with high dry season light levels. The higher photosynthetic capacity that follows persists into the wet season, driving high GEP that is out of phase with sunlight, explaining the negative observed relationship with sunlight. Overall, these patterns suggest that at sites where water is not limiting, light interacts with adaptive mechanisms to determine photosynthetic capacity indirectly through leaf flush and litterfall seasonality. These mechanisms are poorly represented in ecosystem models, and represent an important challenge to efforts to predict tropical forest responses to climatic variations.

[1] We investigated the seasonal patterns of water vapor and sensible heat flux along a tropical biome gradient from forest to savanna. We analyzed data from a network of flux towers in Brazil that were operated within the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA). These tower sites included tropical humid and semideciduous forest, transitional forest, floodplain (with physiognomies of cerrado), and cerrado sensu stricto. The mean annual sensible heat flux at all sites ranged from 20 to 38 Wm À2, and was generally reduced in the wet season and increased in the late dry season, coincident with seasonal variations of net radiation and soil moisture. The sites were easily divisible into two functional groups based on the seasonality of evaporation: tropical forest and savanna. At sites with an annual precipitation above 1900 mm and a dry season length less than 4 months (Manaus, Santarem and Rondonia), evaporation rates increased in the dry season, coincident with increased radiation. Evaporation rates were as high as 4.0 mm d À1 in these evergreen or semidecidous forests. In contrast, ecosystems with precipitation less than 1700 mm and a longer dry season (Mato Grosso, Tocantins and São Paulo) showed clear evidence of reduced evaporation in the dry season. Evaporation rates were as low as 2.5 mm d À1 in the transitional forests and 1 mm d À1 in the cerrado. The controls on evapotranspiration seasonality changed along the biome gradient, with evaporative demand (especially net radiation) playing a more important role in the wetter forests, and soil moisture playing a more important role in the drier savannah sites.

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Recent studies using water isotopes have shown that trees and streams appear to return distinct water pools to the hydrosphere. Cryogenically extracted plant and soil water isotopic signatures diverge from the meteoric water lines, suggesting that plants would preferentially use bound soil water, while mobile soil water that infiltrates the soil recharges groundwater and feeds streamflow all plots on meteoric water lines. These findings have been described under the “two water worlds” (TWW) hypothesis. In spite of growing evidence for the TWW hypothesis, several questions remain unsolved within the scope of this framework. Here, we address the TWW as a null hypothesis and further assess the following: (a) the theoretical biophysical feasibility for two distinct water pools to exist, (b) plant and soil processes that could explain the different isotopic composition between the two water pools, and (c) methodological issues that could explain the divergent isotopic signatures. Moreover, we propose a way forward under the framework of the TWW hypothesis, proposing alternative perspectives and explanations, experiments to further test them, and methodological advances that could help illuminate this quest. We further highlight the need to improve our sampling resolution of plants and soils across time and space. We ultimately propose a set of key priorities for future research to improve our understanding of the ecohydrological processes controlling water flows through the soil–plant‐atmosphere continuum.

The present study focuses on the impacts of extreme drought and flooding situations in Amazonia, using level/discharge data from some rivers in the Amazon region as indicators of impacts. The last 10 years have featured various "once in a century" droughts and floods in the Amazon basin, which have affected human and natural systems in the region. We assess a history of such hazards based on river data, and discuss some of the observed impacts in terms of vulnerability of human and natural systems, as well as some of adaptation strategies implemented by regional and local governments to cope with them. A critical perspective of mitigation of drought and flood policies in Amazonia suggests that they have been mostly ineffective in reducing vulnerability for the majority of the population, constituting, perhaps, examples of maladaptation via the undermining of resilience.

Summary Reducing uncertainties in the response of tropical forests to global change requires understanding how intra‐ and interannual climatic variability selects for different species, community functional composition and ecosystem functioning, so that the response to climatic events of differing frequency and severity can be predicted. Here we present an extensive dataset of hydraulic traits of dominant species in two tropical Amazon forests with contrasting precipitation regimes – low seasonality forest (LSF) and high seasonality forest (HSF) – and relate them to community and ecosystem response to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) of 2015. Hydraulic traits indicated higher drought tolerance in the HSF than in the LSF. Despite more intense drought and lower plant water potentials in HSF during the 2015‐ENSO, greater xylem embolism resistance maintained similar hydraulic safety margin as in LSF. This likely explains how ecosystem‐scale whole‐forest canopy conductance at HSF maintained a similar response to atmospheric drought as at LSF, despite their water transport systems operating at different water potentials. Our results indicate that contrasting precipitation regimes (at seasonal and interannual time scales) select for assemblies of hydraulic traits and taxa at the community level, which may have a significant role in modulating forest drought response at ecosystem scales.

[1] This article discusses seasonal and interannual variations of the evapotranspiration (ET) rates in Bananal Island floodplain, Brazil. Measurements included ET and sensible heat flux using the eddy covariance method, atmospheric forcings (net radiation, Rn, vapor pressure deficit, VPD, wind speed and air temperature), soil moisture profiles, groundwater level and flood height, taken from November 2003 to December 2006. For the hydrological years (October-September) of 2003/2004, 2004/2005 and 2005/2006, the accumulated precipitation was 1692, 1471, 1914 mm and the accumulated ET was 1361, 1318 and 1317 mm, respectively. Seasonal analyses indicated that ET decreased in the dry season (average 3.7 mm day À1 ), despite the simultaneous increase in Rn, air temperature and VPD. The increase of ET in the wet season and particularly in the flood period (average 4.1 mm day À1 ) showed that the free water surface evaporation strongly influenced the energy exchange. Soil moisture, which was substantially depleted during the dry season, and adaptative vegetation mechanisms such as leaf senescence contributed to limit the dry season ET. Strong drainage within permeable sandy soils helped to explain the soil moisture depletion. These results suggest that the Bananal flooding area shows a different pattern in relation to the upland Amazon forests, being more similar to the savanna strictu senso areas in central Brazil. For example, seasonal ET variation was not in phase with Rn; the wet season ET was higher than the dry season ET; and the system stored only a tiny memory of the flooding period, being sensitive to extended drought periods.