•The Plata Basin covers about 3.6 million km2.

•The La Plata Basin is the fifth largest in the world and second only to the Amazon Basin in South America in terms of geographical extent.

•The principal sub-basins are those of the Parana, Paraguay and Uruguay rivers.

•The La Plata Basin covers parts of five countries, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The La Plata Basin

•LPB is home of more than 100 million people including the capital cities of 4 of the five countries, generating 70% of the five countries GNP.

• The fluvial transport of the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway was of 13,000,000 tons in 2004.

• The hydroelectric potential is estimated at 92,000 MW. There is more than 150 dams, and 60% of the hydroelectric potential is already used.

• It is one of the largest food producers (cereals, soybeans and livestock) of the world.

Global relevance of the la Plata Basin

La Plata Basin La Plata Basin (LPB)(LPB)

Regional Hydroclimate ProjectRegional Hydroclimate ProjectFloods Land cover/Land use changesBiomass Burning

What climatological and hydrological factors determine the frequency and spatial extent of floods and droughts? 

How predictable is the regional weather and climate variability and how predictable are their impacts on the hydrological, agricultural and social systems of the basin?

What are the impacts of global climate change and land use change on regional weather, climate, hydrology and agriculture? To what extent can their impacts be predicted?

Standardized annual precipitation anomalies in Corrientes (Argentina)

-3.00

-2.00

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Year

St Ann Mean Anom 11-year running mean Lineal (St Ann Mean Anom)

Vera and Silvestri (2009)

Predictability

Chaotic Atm Dyn

SSTs

LS-A

Koster et al. (2000)

Dirmeyer et al. (2009)

Soil Moisture Memory (days)

Marengo et al. (2003)

Interannual Variability in the La Plata Basin (LPB)

Correlations between precipitation anomalies in LPB and (left) SST anomalies and (right) 500-hPa geopotential height anomalies. Significant values at 90, 95 and 99% are shaded. NCEP reanalysis data.

(Vera and Silvestri 2009)

Positive OND precipitation anomalies in LPB

LPB

-ENSO warm events

-SAM negative phase

(1970-1999)

Correlations between OND precipitation anomalies in LPB and SST anomalies from WCRP/CMIP3 models

Significant values at 90, 95 and 99% are shaded.

(Vera and Silvestri, 2009)

OBS

Correlations between precipitation anomalies in LPB and 500-hPa geopotential height anomalies from WCRP/CMIP3 models

Significant values at 90, 95 and 99% are shaded.

(Vera and Silvestri, 2009)

OBS

Interdecadal variations of the SAM and its impact on South America

Correlations of the SAM index with in-situ precipitation (a-b), in-situ SLP (c-d), reanalyzed SLP (e-f), Z500 (g-h), WIND850 (i-j) and in-situ surface temperature (k-l). Colours indicate values statistically significant at 90% and 95% levels. Grey dots in cases of in-situ observations indicate stations with no significant correlation.

European Union CLARIS - LPBA Europe-South America Network for

Climate Change Assessment and Impact Studies

in the La Plata Basin

IAI Ecosystems, Biodiversity, Land Use and Cover, and

Water Resources

Interaction with CIC-GEFFramework Program for the sustainable management of the La Plata Basin water resources, in relation to climate variability

and change

Projects with support from national agencies

Other Anternational Agencies

CYTED (Spain), NASA, NSF, NOAA (USA), etc.

Scientific Community in the La Plata Basin: Universities,

Research Centers, Operational Centers or Agencies of the 5

countries

Strongly linked at both regional and global levels!

Interaction with national governments and stake

holders

IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The CLARIS LPB

consortium

Partic. No.

Participant organisation name Participant short name

Country

1 Institut de Recherche pour le Développement IRD France 2 University of East Anglia UEA England 3 Leibniz-Zentrums für Agrarlandschaftsforschung ZALF Germany 4 Max-Planck Gesellschaft Institut MPG Germany 5 Euro Mediterranean Center on Climate Change CMCC Italy 6 Universidad de Bologna UNIBO Italy 7 Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha UCLM Spain 8 Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological

Institute SMHI Sweden

9 Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espacias INPE Brazil 10 Universidad de Sao Paulo USP Brazil 11 Universidad Federal de Santa Catarina UFSC Brazil 12 Universidad Federal de Paraná UFPR Brazil 13 Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas

y Técnicas CONICET Argentine

14 Universidad de Buenos Aires UBA Argentine 15 Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria INTA Argentine 16 Instituto Nacional de Agua INA Argentine 17 Universidad de la Republica UR Uruguay 18 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS France 19 CESI RICERCA SpA CESIRICERCA Italy CLARIS LPB Budget (~3.5M€)

CLARIS LPB A Europe-South America Network for

Climate Change Assessment and Impact Studiesin La Plata Basin

CLARIS LPB Expected Impacts

1. Strengthening of the cooperation between European and South American multidisciplinary research communities

2. Improvement of climate change impact prediction capacity for the region through the setting-up of an ensemble of mutli-discipinary scenarios integrating in a coordinated way large-scale climate, regional climate, hydrological, land-use, and agriculture partners.

3. Dissemination of adaptation strategies (specifically designed for land-use, agriculture production, rural development (small farmers), hydropower, flood risk, wetlands ecological systems, river navigation, and near-river urbanization) based on ensembles of probable climate change scenarios for the period 2010-2040

• Subproject 1: Management, dissemination and coordination activities WP1: Project management (J-P Boulanger, IRD) WP2: Project dissemination and coordination activities (J.-P. Boulanger, IRD)

• Subproject 2: Past and future hydroclimate (Coordinator: Mario Nuñez, CONICET) WP3: Improving our description of recent past climate variability in La Plata Basin (Matilde Rusticucci, UBA and Phil Jones, UEA) WP4: Hydroclimate past and future low-frequency variability, trends and shifts (Leila Carvalho, USP, and Myriam Khodri, IRD) WP5: Regional Climate Change assessments for La Plata Basin (Hugo Berbery, CONICET and Hervé Le Treut, CNRS) WP6: Processes and future evolution of extreme climate events in La Plata Basin (Iracema Cavalcanti, CPTEC and Andrea Carril,

INGV/CONICET)

• Subproject 3: Project interface (Coordinator: Clare Goodess, UEA)

WP7: An interface for improving prediction capability of climate change societal impacts (Caio Coehlo, CPTEC and J.-P. Boulanger, IRD)

• Subproject 4: Socio-economic scenarios and adaptation/prevention strategies

WP8: Land use change, agriculture and socio-economic implications (Sandro Schlindwein, UFSC, and Karen Tscherning, ZALF)

· WP9: Water resources in La Plata Basin in the context of climate change (Vicente Barros, CONICET, and Massimo Guerrero, UNIBO)

CLARIS LPBSubprojects and WorkPackages