GOES10 –vis 15abr08 1139 GMTwww.cptec.inpe.br

Building an early warning system for droughts and flooding in the MAP Region of southwestern 

Amazonia

Foster Brown

Woods Hole Research Center/Federal University of Acre

UF Water Institute Distinguished Scholar Seminar SeriesUniversity of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 6 November 2008

fbrown@uol.com.br

Motivation about finding answers and a time scaleTwo god‐children.

Ana Paola, Puerto Maldonado  ‐My age in 2061

Soraya , Rio Branco–My age in 2059

Business‐as‐usual by 2060:

World Population    ~ 9 billion persons(equivalent to adding two more Chinas)

Concentration of  atmospheric CO2 ~600 ppmv

Large part of Amazonia deforested (Soares et al. 2006)

Severe perturbations of the nitrogen, phosphorus cycles, etc.

Acidification of the oceans.

GOES10 –vapor d’agua15abr08 1139 GMTwww.cptec.inpe.br

Where?

Southwestern Amazonia: 

a region of extremely high biological and social diversity. 

Spatial scale of the region

Brazil bigger than the continental U.S., Amazon forest 

region nearly same size.

What happens here has global importance.

Source: P. LafevbreWHRC

Acre

Madre de Dios

Pando

660,000 pop,

160,000 km2

Portuguese

50,000 pop,

63,000 km2

Spanish

100,000 pop,

84,000 km2

Spanish

Cruzeiro do Sul

Trinational MAP Region

Fonte: Ane Alencar

Paul LefvbreWHRC

Relative size of the MAP Region to four US States: New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts (a Northeast bias), 

nearly twice the size of Florida.A significant part of the Earth’s surface

NY

PA NJMA

Madre de Dios

Pando

Acre

Cross-boundary river basins are the norm in the MAP Region

GOES10 ‐vis15abr08 1139 GMTwww.cptec.inpe.br

TRANSPORT OFHEAT AND WATER FROM THE AMAZON REGION.

Inadvertent global experiment: What happens when the forest is cut down and climate variability

changes?

Humanity can do this experiment only once.

Water cycle and the dry season: reduced evapotranspiration in pastures, but forests continue transpiring, supplying water vapor to the “River in the Air.”

05out05Leste do Acre

Water vaporfrom a forest

Water vaporFrom a pasture

9

14 April 2005 The movement of water going to and coming from the MAP Region.

www.cptec.inpe.br

Example of TeleconnectionsWater vapor transport to southern South America.

AndesAndes

MAP Region

Source: J. Marengo, CPTEC/INPE

11

Besides the impact of deforestation on water transport,

concern about climate change

Droughts in the past – precursors for more frequent droughts in the future? 

From Carlos Nobre - 2007: Salazar et al. 2007. Geophysical Research Letters

Fifteen models of global climate change suggesting the drying out of the Amazon by 2090

The temperature in the Amazon are expected to be larger than the global mean estimates, based on IPCC review.

Valverde &Marengo (2007)

Most extremeHadley-cm3

Most extremeHadley-cm3

Dr. Pedro Dias, USP pldsdias@master.iag.usp.br, 7out05Fonte: Cptec - INPE

SSTs and the drought of 2005 in Southwestern Amazonia

TEMPERATURE ANOMALY INSEA SURFACE TEMPERATURESJAN 2005

Frequency of such 2005 events in coming years. (Cox 2007, Hadley Center)

Source of further informationLBA – Large‐scale Biosphere Atmosphere 

Experiment in Amazonia

• Nearly a decade in planning

• Support from Brasil, NASA, European Union

• Now over a thousand peer‐reviewed articles and over a thousand participants

• Group in Acre working on climate and land use at the time of the drought in 2005.

• See:– http://www.lbaeco.org/lbaeco/index.html  

– http://lba.cptec.inpe.br/lba/site/

MAP Initiative

Fonte: Ane Alencar

• Effectively began in 1999 – meeting of universities from Brasil, Bolivia and Peru.

• Informal, polycentric movement

• Waxes and wanes, depending on interest of those with initiative

• miniMAPs  ‐ thematic groups that meet

• Goal: promote collaboration as a means of solving regional problems.

• Further information: www.map‐amazonia.net

Articles from the 2007 Oxford Symposium: Climate change and 

the fate of the Amazon

• 20+ articles published on‐line in February 2008. Compiled by Yadvinder Malhi, Richard Betts and Timmons Roberts

• http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/102022 Volume 363, Number 1498 / May 27, 2008, Pages 1727‐1932 ~200 pages.

The Drought in Amazonia of 2005(2008, Journal of Climate)

José A, Marengo*, Carlos A, Nobre*, Javier Tomasella*, Marcos D, Oyama**, Gilvan Sampaio de Oliveira*, Rafael de Oliveira*, Helio

Camargo*, Lincoln M, Alves*, Irving Foster Brown***

*CPTEC/INPE, São Paulo, Brazil** CTA/IAE, São Paulo, Brazil

***WHRC/UFAC

The rivers reflect rainfall,The year 2005 was the 6th lowest in 103 years of measurement of the

height of the Rio Negro. Climate variability has always existed.

Marengo et al (2008) and Cox (2007)

ano

October

June

The rivers reflect rainfall ‐ II Lowest river levels occur in the last few years after a decadal decline,

Acre River at Rio Branco, Acre

Lowest levels2005, 2007,

2006

Rainfall anomalies CPTEC product 2004-2005, Note the dry season anomaly from May on concentrates in the west of Amazonia (Marengo et al. 2008, J. of Climate).

MAP Region

Crisis in the water supplyGovernment and Municipality fear total collapse with the drying of the River

Pagina 20, 30Jun05

Low water levels affected pumps.

Eta I06ago05

25

Floating pumps were installed in time to avoid a severe water scarcity.   During the last drought of this magnitude in 1963 the population of Rio 

Branco was < 50,000, now it is > 250,000.

Increased societal vulnerability is the norm for water supplies.

IFB, 6 agosto 200526

The impacts of fires in 2005

Burned forests, 5oct07Near Xapuri, Acre

Changing paradigm for this part of Amazônia

• Before 1998: SW Amazonian forests are not susceptible to fire.

• 1998 (El Niño): Forests can become susceptible. (Elsa Mendoza’s M.Sc. Thesis)

• 2005 (Drought): Extensive regions of forests can become susceptible, and if burned, can take decades to recover.

Burned forests 05oct05Near Xapuri, Acre

• Op‐Ed Article a product of LBA meetings, research, influence of colleagues, and simple logic: if the drought continues, the forests will burn.

• It led to a meeting of the state fire committee.

• It was timid and late.  Typical of a scientist worried about Type I error – saying that something was significant, when it was not.  Nearly made a Type II error.

Drought in the River and Fire in the Forest– Op-Ed in regional newspaper, 2Aug05http://www2,uol,com,br/pagina20/02082005/index,htm

Meio dia, Acrelândia, 17set05

Fire propagating within the forest, little direct impact on canopy, probably not detectable by routine satellite observations.

Acre will declare a state of emergency

21 de setembro de 2005

Fire in the Forest 27Sep05

Over a mile of fire linewithout trails in a rainforest

How does one fight a fire in such conditions?

Fire in the Forest 27Sep05 Near Acrelândia, border with Pando

Burned Forest, Canopy directly affected.05Oct05, Near Xapuri, Acre

Monica De Los RiosMS Student at UFAC

LBA-Acre Group asked to help ín Situation Room of the State Civil Defense, focusing on locating fires and providing GIS/RS support.

Claudio CavalcanteGeography student

Nara PantojaForestry Student

Clarice FariasForestry student

Luis André CorreiaComputer Science student

Burned forests 28Sep05 near de Acrelândia

LBA-Acre Group responsible for 5 PM briefing of the Fire Fighting Commission of Civil

Defense, advising as to where to fight fires.

Karla Rocha

Burned Forest, Canopy directly affected.05Oct05, Near Xapuri, Acre

Xapuri 21ago05

5 km

Xapuri

CBERS_180_112UFAC/PZ/SETEM/WHR30out05

Xapuri   12out05   

5 kmXapuri

CBERS_180_112UFAC/PZ/SETEM/WHRC30out05

Eastern Acre, Brazil, October 2005,Burn scars and damaged forest canopies

Rio Branco

Xapuri

Resultados

> 241,513AREA TOTAL AFECTADA POR

FUEGO

22,120Área posiblemente afectada

123,510Área con copa afectada

15,208Área abierta posiblemente afectada

80,675Área abierta afectada

SUPERFICIE (ha)TIPO DE QUEMA Forest with canopy

affected in Pando, Bolivia >120,000 ha (Cots et al. 2007)

Hot pixels of NOAA-12, MODIS (Aqua+Terra) GOES (INPE) in 2005 (Vasconcelos et al. 2007)

Satélites AQUA, GOES-12, NOAA-12 e TERRA, em2005 na região MAP, Fonte:http://www,dpi,inpe,br/proarco/bdqueimadas

Environmental and social costs are ‘invisible’ if they are not quantified and understood 

• Example: forests with canopies affected by fire, detected by 

CBERS and Landsat imagery. 

• Acre: > 267,000 ha

• Pando: > 120,000 ha

• Madre de Dios: >> 20,000 ha

• Total: > 400,000 ha.

• If the environmental impact was equal to the fine of 1,000 

reals/ha (500 dollars/ha),  the region became 200 million 

dollars poorer.

• Official AVADAN estimates:  ~80 million dollars

How much would society pay to reduce this loss of 107 to 108 dollars 

by half?

How much should be invested in risk reduction 

and adaptation?Minister announces plan to recuperate areas affected by fire

Pagina 20 04oct05

Questions for regional development plans

Governor and Vice‐Governor (now Governor) thank the LBA‐Acre group for volunteering in October 2005  ‐

We tried but were not effective in controlling the fires – need to anticipate the problem

Results I

• Urgent need for inexpensive techniques that allow for real time location of forest fires and to forecast critical conditions in order to avoid fires. 

• It was God, not firemen, that put out the forest fires in 2005, We didn’t know where many (most?) were, much less able to fight them.

But not only fires, but also flooding is a problem in the MAP Region

• First MAP meeting of Civil Defense to plan actions about fires, 3 Feb 2006 in Cobija,Pando, ended early – flooding in the city.

Four months after the fires, the day after a seminar on the fires of 2005…

Back to the Civil Defense Situation Room, 

this time for flooding in Rio Branco, Acre.

More than 20 thousand persons affected by flooding in Rio BrancoGazeta, 17feb06 p,1

Flooding in Rio Branco, Feb06

From one extreme to another in early 2006

13May06 GAZETA p, 1Drop in water level below that of 2005

19Feb06

Rio Branco, flooding

3 months

Foto:F, Brown

Synergy of climate variability with infrastructure development

Roads and Dams

Large-scale infrastructure investments in the MAP Region (source: NASA e M,Steininger, CI, IIRSA)

Beni

CobijaRondônia

Pando

Lago Titicaca

Acre

HighwayIñapari- Pacifico –US$ 810 million

UHE St, Antonio3,600 MW

UHE Jirau3,900 MW

UHE Binational3,000 MW

US$ 10 billion

HighwayGuayaramerin-Yucumo US$460 million

PuertoMaldonado

4,000 km de Rios navegaveis

Rio Branco

Highway toCruzeiro do SulUS$ 250 million

UHE InambariUS$ 5 Billion

At the MAP VII Forum (November 2007) all three governors (Madre de Dios, Acre, Pando) asked the MAP Initiative for help in developing regional plans for development, an opportunity for  Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).

The imperfect art of climate/weather prediction

• The 2005 drought– The  Brazilian Center for Weather Forecasting and Climate Studies of the National Institute of Space Research (CPTEC/INPE) – didn’t predict it. 

– The International Research Institute for Climate Studies – Columbia University – predicted it, but missed the location by 2000 km

IRI forecast of January  2005 for  April – June 2005

Forecast of May 2005: Strong drought on eastern side         of  Amazonia in June – September 2005

Observed rainfall anomalies CPTEC product 2004-2005, (Marengo et al. 2008, J. of Climate).

Drought on Western Side of Amazonia – 2000 km error in location

Region MAP

Forecast of May 2007 for 

July –September 

2007:normal 

rainfall for the MAP Region

Burning rainforests 04Oct07, Manuripi, Pando 

63

Conclusion: forecasts for 2‐3 months have limited accuracy for 

the MAP Region

Need for short‐term forecasting and analysis 

• Began in 2005 with an informal email listing to initially about 30 persons ‐ expanded to nearly 100 persons in three countries

• Based on web site of CPTEC/INPE as well as NASA site– Hot pixel data – where fires are occurring

– Fire risk

– Short‐term (1 week) rainfall and wind forecasting

– Also using hydroestimator for recording large rainfall events:  anticipating flooding.

www.cptec.inpe.br

www.cptec.inpe.br/queimadas

Hot pixel data 26‐29Aug08www.cptec.inpe.br/queimadas

7‐day forecasting of rainfall, cloud

cover, temperatureand wind for

Puerto Maldonadowww.cptec.inpe.br

Forecasts of fire risk in South America

Forecasts of fire risk in Acre

Acrelândia, 28jul06,

The fire‐impacted forests of 2005 become fire risks in 2008

In 2006, with a drought and memories of 2005, rural producers became nervous, as did the Public Ministry of Acre

• The Public Ministry of Acre requested LBA‐Acre to coordinate a study of forests damaged by fires (now considered areas of risk) with professionals from FUNTAC, IBAMA, UFAC, WHRC, and U. Maryland involved,  Result: Brown et al (2006b).

With more than 400,000 ha of forests damaged by fires in the MAP Region (> 267,000 ha in eastern Acre), the Public Ministry recommends suspension of burning on 25Jul06.

Societal response to risks of fire from 2006‐2008,  Acre most active in MAP Region.

• 2006 – Election year.  Public Ministry (State and Federal) recommended the prohibition of fires – First meeting of Acre state fire committee in May

• 2007 – No prohibition– First meeting of Acre state fire committee in May

• 2008 – Election year.  Public Ministry (State and Federal) recommended the prohibition of fires

– First meeting of Acre state fire committee in May.

– Second meeting in mid‐July. 

MAP working group on maps of fire‐impacted forests ‐ 2008

18jul08 – Rio Branco01ago08 – Epitaciolandia

20ago08 – Epitaciolandia

Results:Fire Risk Maps in Acre – FUNTAC/ACFire Risk Maps in Pando – HerenciaBoletins on risk – SEMA/AC

Discussion and  capacity building for fire detection and risk 4jul08, Cobija, Pando with 

Alberto Setzer, INPE.

Example of fire risk map – Assis Brasil

Flyer on fires and fire risk – Acre State Environment Secretariat – SEMA/AC

Flyer on fire occurrence and risk – PandoHerencia – Bolivian NGO 

Fire Observatory – Madre de DiosEnvironmental Sustainability Center ‐

Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia

Local fire risk mapping ‐ Initiative of UNAMAD, Municipality of Inapari, and 

U. Florida – October 2008

Example of making data available: email and www.map‐amazonia.net Forum GTP Queimadas

GOES-12Vapor d’Água200802101145 UTCwww.inmet.gov.br

Other efforts for collaboration related to water resources in the 

MAP Region 

Workshop on climate change,  Pucallpa, Peru in 2007: recommendations for joint management of river basins. 

www.map‐amazonia.net Forum Comite Cientifico

85

MiniMAP River Basins(Source: Dr. Vera Reis, vlreis.ac@uol.com.br)

• The State of Acre has incorporated the actions of the miniMAP River Basin as public policy with the objective of conserving water resources in the state, using river basins as units for planning.

• At the Brazilian national level,  the Acre River Working Group has advanced on developing the basis for a trinational management for the Acre River Basin. 

Agreement to Mitigate Climate Change

A proposal of the Acre State Government to implement a program on sustainable landsapes and environmental services  in order to mitigate the effects of global 

climate change.

Fonte: E. Amaral mar08

TeachersIvanir e ZeliaAssis Brasil, Acre2001

Implementation of the Children’s Forests (Natural Resource Management) - now public policy of Assis Brasil municipality for about 37 rural schools, 400 children. Full program gradually being implemented.

Next step: Developing a global change program in urban and rural schools 1-8 grades of Assis Brasil, Brasileia and Epitaciolandia.

Collaborative monitoring of fires in 2006 with the Civil Defenses of Acre, Brazil and Pando, Bolivia.

West of Montevideo and Plácido de Castro, 09Aug06

miniMAP Territorial Organization – incorporation of risk management –fires and climate change.

August 2008Puerto Maldonado

Bad news: Political instability in Pando and Madre de Dios– July 2008 – Headquarters of Madre de Dios Government burned

– September 2008 ‐ >15 persons killed in political violence in Pando.  Martial law decreed.

Conclusions

• Societies in the region becoming more vulnerable to disruption.

• Dissemination of information for an early warning system for droughts and floods now advancing.

• Need for an emergent paradigm for a common goal.

• Peace – a prerequisite for implementing regional development– The Planet is too small for wars and civil conflicts.