Correa, A.; Windhorst, D.; Crespo, P.; Celleri, R.; Feyen, J. & Breuer, L. (2016): <b>Continuous versus event based sampling: How many samples are required for deriving general hydrological understanding on Ecuador's páramo region?</b>. <i>Hydrological Processes</i> <b>30</b>(22), 4059-4073.
Resource Description
Title:
Continuous versus event based sampling: How many samples are required for deriving general hydrological understanding on Ecuador's páramo region?
FOR816dw ID:
1504
Publication Date:
2016-07-27
License and Usage Rights:
PAK 823-825 data user agreement. (www.tropicalmountainforest.org/dataagreementp3.do)
email:
rcelleri <at> gmail.com
Dirección de Investigación
Cuenca
Ecuador
Individual:
Jan Feyen
Contact:
email:
webmaster <at> tropicalmountainforest.org
Individual:
Lutz Breuer
Contact:
email:
lutz.breuer <at> umwelt.uni-giessen.de
Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26
Institute for Landscape Ecology and Resources Management
Justus-Liebig-University Gießen
35392 Gießen
Germany
Abstract:
As a consequence of the remote location of the Andean páramo is knowledge on their hydrologic functioning limited, notwithstanding this alpine tundra ecosystem act as water towers for a large fraction of the society. Given the harsh environmental conditions in this region is year-round monitoring cumbersome, and it would be beneficially if the monitoring needed for the understanding of the rainfall-runoff response could be limited in time. To identify the hydrological response and the effect of temporal monitoring a nested (n?=?7) hydrological monitoring network was set up in the Zhurucay catchment (7.53?km2), south Ecuador. The research questions were: (1) can event sampling provide similar information in comparison to continuous monitoring, and (2) if so, how many events are needed to achieve a similar degree of information? A subset of 34 rainfall runoff events was compared to monthly values derived from a continuous monitoring scheme from December 2010 to November 2013. Land cover and physiographic characteristics were correlated with eleven hydrological indices. Results show that despite some distinct differences between event and continuous sampling, both datasets reveal similar information; more in particular the monitoring of a single event in the rainy season provides the same information as continuous monitoring, while during the dry season 10 events ought to be monitored.
