Abstract
Water availability is a limiting factor for the development of natural and human ecosystems. Comarca Lagunera is an arid region in northern Mexico and a young metropolis with great economic growth. However, this development has been at the cost of the deterioration of the natural capital of the Nazas River Basin (BRN). Also, climate change generates great uncertainty regarding its future impacts. Therefore, the aim of this work was to determine the degree of current aridity of the NRB with the De Martonne’s aridity index and to make comparisons of the aridity of two shared socioeconomic pathways of greenhouse gas emissions (ssp1-2.6W/m2 and ssp5-8.5W/m2) in two intervals of time (2021-2040 and 2041-2060). For this, maps from the CONABIO and WorldClim databases were used, and the analyzes were performed with QGis Software and Microsoft Excel. Results show that the changes in the aridity of the NRB, with the ssp1-2.6W/m2 scenario in the two intervals, are not significant with respect to the current aridity. However, with the ssp5-8.5W/m2 scenario, the significant changes are shown in the time period 2041-2060, mainly in the upper basin. Compared with the map of vegetation cover and land uses, the possible alterations occur in areas where there are pine-oak forests, natural pastures and rain fed agriculture. The upper basin is the most sensitive part of the water system, because what happens there will have repercussions downstream. This work is a baseline for more complex studies about NRB health, and methods can be used in other sites of interest.
Presenters
Gabriel De Jesús Peña UribeStudent, Doctoral, Universidad Juárez del Estado de Durango, Durango, Mexico
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Assessing Impacts in Diverse Ecosystems
KEYWORDS
Aridity index, Arid zones, Radiative forcing, Map Analysis
