Freshwater security in agricultural watersheds of the wet-dry tropics, Guanacaste, Costa Rica
Abstract
In agricultural watersheds of the wet-dry tropics in Central America, communities often experience water scarcity. During the long dry season, water conflicts between household water use and agricultural water use emerge. Despite the frequent water shortages, scientific knowledge on the response of the coupled surface water-groundwater system to the high inter-annual rainfall variability and to societal water use is limited. Using a socio-hydrological system approach, we studied the surface water - groundwater system for the Potrero and Caimital rivers and aquifer in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. High frequency monitoring of 5 river stations, 3 groundwater wells and a meteorological station including eddy covariance measurements of evapotranspiration began in June 2014. Urban and rural household water extraction data was obtained from water agencies. Agricultural water use was estimated using evapotranspiration measurements and extraction estimates from local farms. The dataset is further supplemented with MODIS evapotranspiration estimates and vegetation indices. Here we present responses between water use and the hydrological system as conditioned by rainfall variability throughout the wet and dry seasons. This approach will allow exploring feedback processes between rainfall variability, water use and water availability, such enabling the development of water management strategies and improve the freshwater security of communities.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.H33E1579H
- Keywords:
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- 0485 Science policy;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 1834 Human impacts;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1880 Water management;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1895 Instruments and techniques: monitoring;
- HYDROLOGY