HR: 0800h
AN: H31B-07    [Abstracts]
TI: The Importance of the Nothofagus Forest on Snowmelt Process linked to floods in Mountain Basins of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina as Input for Land Use Policies.
AU: * Iturraspe, R J
EM: rodolfoiturraspe@yahoo.com
AF: Direccion de Recursos Hídricos, San Martín 1401, Ushuaia, Argentina
AU: Urciuolo, A B
EM: urciuolo@tdfuego.com
AF: Direccion de Recursos Hídricos, San Martín 1401, Ushuaia, Argentina
AU: Lofiego, R
EM: rodolfoiturraspe@yahoo.com
AF: Direccion de Recursos Hídricos, San Martín 1401, Ushuaia, Argentina
AB: The conception and application of policies and best practices for the appropriate land use from the view point of extreme floods attenuation, must be based on scientist acknowledge of the basin response, reaching each one of the hydrological cycle's components. That condition is necessary as a start point for an integrated intersectoral management of water and forest resources at the basin scale, especially when forest logging or forest urbanization appear as land use alternatives with socioeconomic importance, confronting the natural roll of the forest in the basin. Within this framework, this article analyzes the forest importance on the seasonal snow-pack and snow-melting process in the mountain basin environment of Tierra del Fuego Island, Argentina, where a mixed rain-snow hydrological regimen and a canopy of native Nothofagus forest are basic features considered. Extreme floods events are related to heavy rain and snow-melting combination. In theory, the worst scenario is the exceptional rain occurrence at the moment of the maximum snow storage, air temperature higher than 0ºC in the whole basin, and previous wet conditions. On this scenario we analyze aspects that indicate forest influences on the snow pack distribution and evolution which are favorable to the attenuation of the intensity of melting process which are induced by rain and temperate air mass. Results were obtained in the context of the EPIC FORCE (EU) Project.
UR: http:www.ceg.ncl.ac.uk/epicforce/
DE: 0740 Snowmelt
DE: 1821 Floods
DE: 1880 Water management (6334)
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly