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Balocchi, F., Galleguillos, M., Rivera, D., Stehr, A., Arumi, J. L., Pizarro, R., et al. (2023). Forest hydrology in Chile: Past, present, and future. J. Hydrol., 616, 128681.
Abstract: This paper reviews the current knowledge of hydrological processes in Chilean temperate forests which extend along western South America from latitude 29 degrees S to 56 degrees S. This geographic region includes a diverse range of natural and planted forests and a broad sweep of vegetation, edaphic, topographic, geologic, and climatic set-tings which create a unique natural laboratory. Many local communities, endangered freshwater ecosystems, and downstream economic activities in Chile rely on water flows from forested catchments. This review aims to (i) provide a comprehensive overview of Chilean forest hydrology, to (ii) review prior research in forest hydrology in Chile, and to (iii) identify knowledge gaps and provide a vision for future research on forest hydrology in Chile. We reviewed the relation between native forests, commercial plantations, and other land uses on water yield and water quality from the plot to the catchment scale. Much of the global understanding of forests and their relationship with the water cycle is in line with the findings of the studies reviewed here. Streamflow from forested catchments increases after timber harvesting, native forests appear to use less water than plantations, and streams draining native forest yield less sediment than streams draining plantations or grassland/shrublands. We identified 20 key knowledge gaps such as forest groundwater systems, soil-plant-atmosphere interactions, native forest hydrology, and the effect of forest management and restoration on hydrology. Also, we found a paucity of research in the northern geographic areas and forest types (35-36 degrees S); most forest hydrology studies in Chile (56%) have been conducted in the southern area (Los Rios Region around 39-40 degrees S). There is limited knowledge of the geology and soils in many forested areas and how surface and groundwater are affected by changes in land cover. There is an opportunity to advance our understanding using process-based investigations linking field studies and modeling. Through the establishment of a forest hydrology science “society” to coor-dinate efforts, regional and national-scale land use planning might be supported. Our review ends with a vision to advance a cross-scale collaborative effort to use new nation-wide catchment-scale networks Long-term Ecosystem Research (LTER) sites, to promote common and
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Vega-Briones, J., de Jong, S., Galleguillos, M., & Wanders, N. (2023). Identifying driving processes of drought recovery in the southern Andes natural catchments. J. Hydrol. Reg. Stud., 47, 101369.
Abstract: Study region The natural river basins of Chile.Study focus Drought effects on terrestrial ecosystems produce hydroclimatic stress with variable ex-tensions. Particularly, hydrological drought duration can provide a better understanding of recovery together with catchment characteristics and climatology. This study focuses on the impacts of the multi-year drought experienced in Chile for more than a decade.The recovery of relevant catchment variables to quantify the drought termination (DT) and drought termination duration (DTD) after the hydrological drought is presented. A composite analysis of natural catchments using the CAMELS-CL data set discharge (1988-2020), k-NDVI (2000-2020), and soil moisture (1991-2020) provides the average response of the recovery after severe droughts.New hydrological insights for the region This study demonstrates that local catchment properties can explain the recovery of studied variables after a hydrological drought.Explanatory variables from CAMELS-CL to derive the DT using random forest regression (RFR) were used with a strong correlation of 0.92, 0.84, and 0.89 for discharge, vegetation productivity, and soil moisture, respectively.The discharge patterns show longer recovery over environments dominated by shrublands with less precipitation and higher temperatures, in central Chile, while higher latitudes with higher vegetation cover, increasing precipitation, and lower temperatures present shorter recovery times. The vegetation productivity shows longer recovery over highly vegetated mountains in central Chile. The soil moisture recovery spatial distribution presented patterns that connect them with the discharge recovery. This work enables the identification of drought vulnerability, which is valuable for managing water resources and ecosystems and is helping to predict drought recovery periods in regions with a lack of observations.
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