Second year report of the project CRN-2094 The Impact of Land Cover and Land Use Changes on the Hydroclimate of the La Plata Basin

The report details progress in modeling land-atmosphere interactions in the La Plata Basin, specifically testing the use of Ecosystem Functional Types (EFTs) to better represent interannual vegetation variability. It describes the development of a South American Land Data Assimilation System (SALDAS) and the evaluation of various atmospheric reanalyses for precipitation accuracy. Additionally, the document covers efforts to estimate evapotranspiration using MODIS data, the potential remote effects of Amazonian deforestation on the basin, and the implementation of an agricultural decision support system in Paraguay.

• Replacing traditional land-cover types with time-varying Ecosystem Functional Types (EFTs) in regional models allows for a more accurate representation of interannual variability in biophysical properties. Testing with the WRF model showed that using high-productivity EFTs can increase near-surface temperatures by as much as 1°C in the central and western La Plata Basin during spring.
• A control run of the South American Land Data Assimilation System (SALDAS) from 1979-2004 using the Noah LSM and MERRA atmospheric forcing was generated at 10km spatial resolution. Comparisons indicate that the land surface model partitions water differently depending on the atmospheric forcing source, with NOAH-MERRA producing low runoff and baseflow values.
• An evaluation of six atmospheric reanalyses for precipitation over South America found that the CFSR dataset presents the smallest biases, likely due to the assimilation of GLDAS products. Most reanalyses showed correlation coefficients below 0.6 compared to observation-based products.
• Evapotranspiration estimates for the La Plata Basin (2001-2004) using the Penman-Monteith method and MODIS-derived Leaf Area Index (LAI) successfully reproduced the spatial and seasonal variations of evapotranspiration when compared to energy balance models.
• Preliminary validation of reanalysis data for the La Plata Basin (1999-2008) showed that NCEP-3 reanalysis performs better than MERRA regarding rainfall variables, leading researchers to select NCEP-3 for investigating the impacts of Amazonian deforestation on the basin's water balance.
• In Paraguay, the project has advanced an agricultural component including the installation of 20 weather stations funded by the Federation of Cooperatives (estimated cost of $60,000) and the development of the Open AgroClimate web-based decision support system.

APA

Berbery, E. H., de Goncalves, L. G., Herdies, D., Kalnay, E., Lettenmaier, D., Nuñez, M., Paruelo, J., & Dias, P. S. (2010). Second year report of the project CRN-2094 The Impact of Land Cover and Land Use Changes on the Hydroclimate of the La Plata Basin. Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research. https://iai.int/admin/site/sites/default/files/uploads/2014/03/Final_report_IDRC_Berbery.pdf

Chicago

Berbery, Ernesto Hugo, Luis Gustavo de Goncalves, Dirceu Herdies, Eugenia Kalnay, Dennis Lettenmaier, Mario Nuñez, Jose Paruelo, and Pedro Silva Dias. Second year report of the project CRN-2094 The Impact of Land Cover and Land Use Changes on the Hydroclimate of the La Plata Basin. Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, 2010. https://iai.int/admin/site/sites/default/files/uploads/2014/03/Final_report_IDRC_Berbery.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Berbery |first1=Ernesto Hugo |last2=de Goncalves |first2=Luis Gustavo |last3=Herdies |first3=Dirceu |last4=Kalnay |first4=Eugenia |last5=Lettenmaier |first5=Dennis |last6=Nuñez |first6=Mario |last7=Paruelo |first7=Jose |last8=Dias |first8=Pedro Silva |title=Second year report of the project CRN-2094 The Impact of Land Cover and Land Use Changes on the Hydroclimate of the La Plata Basin |publisher=Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research |date=2010 |url=https://iai.int/admin/site/sites/default/files/uploads/2014/03/Final_report_IDRC_Berbery.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{berbery2010second, author = {Berbery, Ernesto Hugo and de Goncalves, Luis Gustavo and Herdies, Dirceu and Kalnay, Eugenia and Lettenmaier, Dennis and Nuñez, Mario and Paruelo, Jose and Dias, Pedro Silva}, title = {{Second year report of the project CRN-2094 The Impact of Land Cover and Land Use Changes on the Hydroclimate of the La Plata Basin}}, institution = {Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research}, year = {2010}, url = {https://iai.int/admin/site/sites/default/files/uploads/2014/03/Final_report_IDRC_Berbery.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }