New challenges in the management of the Brazilian Pantanal and catchment area

Abstract

The Pantanal wetland is a vast seasonally inundated area of extraordinary landscape and biological diversity and complexity. It is located in the upper portion of the Paraguay River basin in central South America. During the rainy season, increased stream discharge from the surrounding basin produces an annual flood pulse through the Pantanal. Increasing human impact, such as dam construction, deforestation, agricultural related activities, and the Hidrovia project in the Parana-Paraguay waterway, threaten the ecological stability of the Pantanal area. As a result, there is an urgent need to introduce new management practices in the Pantanal Basin. In this paper we present a concept for managing the Pantanal catchment based on the integration of ecological knowledge, institutional organization, and involvement of different stakeholders. We propose approaches for an integrated management of the Pantanal and its catchment based on improving data bases and the empowerment of the stakeholder groups. The latter depends on increasing the level of education and access to information, as well as implementing procedures to improve public involvement and enforcement of environmental regulations

Fish communities of the Pantanal wetland in Brazil: evaluating the effects of the upper Paraguay river flood pulse on baía Caiçara fish fauna

“…In spite of a strong rainy season from October to March (annual mean of 1,599 mm) and a wide range of temperatures (11-42°C, annual mean of 24°C; Por 1995), the regional climate is characterized as tropical savanna. In the Pantanal, the evaporation rates surpass the pluviometric rates, and the flood pulses vary in space and time due to the huge area involved, the complex network, and the variations in the pluviometric indexes between the upper and lower parts of the basin (1,250 and 1,089 mm year -1 , respectively; Por 1995; Da Silva and Girard 2004). The marked decrease in the slope of the hydrographic basin in the North-South direction (*0.01 m km -1 ) promotes a delay of *60-120 days in the monomodal flood pulse over a stretch of *400 km between the municipalities of Cáceres and Corumbá (Por 1995 ; Fig.…”

“…The aquatic environments are threatened by mining activities and alterations in hydrology due to the planning of a transnational waterway for the transport of agricultural products from the upper stretches of the basin to the Atlantic Ocean (Da Silva and Girard 2004). Since the 1980s, the concepts of hydrological connectivity and flood pulse (sensu Amoros and Roux 1988;Junk et al 1989) have been evoked and adapted to describe the particular seasonal flooding of the Pantanal (Bonetto and Wais 1990;Collischonn et al 2001;Wantzen et al 2005).…”

Inundation and groundwater dynamics for quantification of evaporative water loss in tropical wetlands

“…The incoming radiation term depends more on astronomical rather than on local conditions of the climate (Shuttleworth, 1993). In the tropics the energy available at the ground surface, calculated on the basis of cloud cover, controls evaporation (Souch et al, 1998). To obtain the cloud cover data required we used these data from the Cuiabá Airport station (100 km north of study area), which were assumed to be similar to our study area since the climate in the region is determined by the movement of the ITCZ on a large scale (Hasenack et al, 2003).…”

“…The determination of evaporative water loss in tropical wetlands is especially challenging since they are mostly characterized by remoteness, where lack of data is typical (Sanches et al, 2011). Changing water depth and the heterogeneity of wetland vegetation (Mohamed et al, 2012) complicate measurements in these environments (Silva and Girard, 2004). The estimation of evaporation requires highly accurate measurements (Drexler et al, 2004), which are rarely available in remote areas.…”

Genesis and Classification of Sodic Soils in the Northern Pantanal

“…Unlike soils in the semi-arid region of Brazil, the sodic soils of the flood plain of the São Lourenço River, in the Pantanal region of Mato Grosso, occur mainly in the highest parts of the landscape (paleolevees) (Nascimento et al, 2015), which are used by wild or domesticated animals (beef cattle) as a refuge during the flood period (Silva and Girard, 2004). Thus, the importance of sodic soils in the Pantanal extrapolates their expression in terms of area, for they also play an important role in the ecology of the region, which may include intentional consumption by some wild animals (geophagy) to suppress nutritional deficiencies or to neutralize toxic compounds (Gilardi et al, 1999;Coelho, 2016).…”