TY - JOUR
T1 - Spatiotemporal Peatland Productivity and Climate Relationships Across the Western South American Altiplano
AU - Anderson, Talia G.
AU - Christie, Duncan A.
AU - CHAVEZ OYANADEL, ROBERTO ORLANDO
AU - Olea, Matias
AU - Anchukaitis, Kevin J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Our research was supported by Fondecyt grants 1201411, 11171046, and 1211924 and ANID/FONDAP grant 15110009. T.G. Anderson was supported by a Fulbright Study and Research Grant in Chile. We thank Dr. Freddy Saavedra for providing the snow persistence data as well as Dr. Juan Pablo Boisier for sharing the original CR2MET precipitation and temperature data sets. We would also like to thank the Chilean National Forest Service (CONAF) for supporting field trips within the National Protected Areas network.
Funding Information:
Our research was supported by Fondecyt grants 1201411, 11171046, and 1211924 and ANID/FONDAP grant 15110009. T.G. Anderson was supported by a Fulbright Study and Research Grant in Chile. We thank Dr. Freddy Saavedra for providing the snow persistence data as well as Dr. Juan Pablo Boisier for sharing the original CR2MET precipitation and temperature data sets. We would also like to thank the Chilean National Forest Service (CONAF) for supporting field trips within the National Protected Areas network.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2021/6
Y1 - 2021/6
N2 - The South American Altiplano is one of the largest semiarid high-altitude plateaus in the world. Within the Altiplano, peatlands known as “bofedales” are important components of regional hydrology and provide key water resources and ecosystem services to Andean communities. Warming temperatures, changes in hydroclimate, and shifting atmospheric circulation patterns all affect peatland dynamics and hydrology. It is therefore urgent to better understand the relationships between climate variability and the spatiotemporal variations in peatland productivity across the Altiplano. Here, we explore climate influences on peatland vegetation using 31 years of Landsat data. We focus specifically on the bofedal network in the western Altiplano, the driest sector of the plateau, and use the satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as an indicator of productivity. We develop temporally and spatially continuous NDVI products at multiple scales in order to evaluate relationships with climate variables over the past three decades. We demonstrate that cumulative precipitation and snow persistence over the prior 2 years are strongly associated with growing season productivity. A step change in peatland productivity between 2013–2015 drives an increasing trend in NDVI and is likely a response to consecutive years of anomalously high snow accumulation and rainfall. Early summer minimum temperatures emerge as a secondary influence on productivity. Understanding large-scale productivity dynamics and characterizing the response of bofedales to climate variability over the last three decades provides a baseline to monitor the responses of Andean peatlands to climate change.
AB - The South American Altiplano is one of the largest semiarid high-altitude plateaus in the world. Within the Altiplano, peatlands known as “bofedales” are important components of regional hydrology and provide key water resources and ecosystem services to Andean communities. Warming temperatures, changes in hydroclimate, and shifting atmospheric circulation patterns all affect peatland dynamics and hydrology. It is therefore urgent to better understand the relationships between climate variability and the spatiotemporal variations in peatland productivity across the Altiplano. Here, we explore climate influences on peatland vegetation using 31 years of Landsat data. We focus specifically on the bofedal network in the western Altiplano, the driest sector of the plateau, and use the satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as an indicator of productivity. We develop temporally and spatially continuous NDVI products at multiple scales in order to evaluate relationships with climate variables over the past three decades. We demonstrate that cumulative precipitation and snow persistence over the prior 2 years are strongly associated with growing season productivity. A step change in peatland productivity between 2013–2015 drives an increasing trend in NDVI and is likely a response to consecutive years of anomalously high snow accumulation and rainfall. Early summer minimum temperatures emerge as a secondary influence on productivity. Understanding large-scale productivity dynamics and characterizing the response of bofedales to climate variability over the last three decades provides a baseline to monitor the responses of Andean peatlands to climate change.
KW - Altiplano
KW - Andes
KW - bofedales
KW - NDVI
KW - peatlands
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85108612868&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1029/2020JG005994
DO - 10.1029/2020JG005994
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85108612868
VL - 126
JO - Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences
JF - Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences
SN - 2169-8953
IS - 6
M1 - e2020JG005994
ER -