Both Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) and Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) have a wide range of strategies that include different economic instruments for nature conservation. Although the generation and maintenance of payment for hydrologic ecosystem services (Water-PES) is expanding in Brazil, there are difficulties in the implementation of projects. Due to the complexity and non-linearity of the hydrological processes, also affecting both EbA and Water-PES goals, monitoring quali-quantitative aspects of streams have been here addressed as a useful management tool. This study presents the Hydrological Monitoring Plan (HMP) of the Water Producer/PCJ project, operating between 2009-2014, in order to: 1 ) evaluate the impact of project actions under water quali-quantitative aspects; and 2 ) promote the incorporation of HMP’s elements in water resources management. HMP of the Water Producer/PCJ project has been implemented following the conditions for efficiency (baseline, long-term scale compatible with the actions of the project, in the experimental and reference watersheds). In addition, HMP is being implemented from upstream to downstream in catchments with areas ranging from 17 to 130 km 2 . This proposal favors the quantification and valuation of hydrologic services that could be assessed by ecohydrologic monitoring and modeling. Thus, we look forward to the consolidation of the Brazilian information system of water resources, the reduction of modeling uncertainties and integrated assessment of the consequences of land-use/land-cover change that strongly impact goals of EbA and Water-PES initiatives.
The hydrologic ecosystem services, hereafter referred as hydrologic services, are the ecohydrologic natural processes arising from river flow dynamics and flow/riparian areas interaction which benefit people. These processes can, for example, improve water quality, regulate flood risks, increase recreational opportunities and create positive socioeconomic effects. Hydrologic services are quantified by quali-quantitative river monitoring. The Active River Area assessment [
On the one hand, ecohydrological processes [
Generally, agricultural water uses are classified as “insignificant withdrawals”, as defined in Brazilian legislation [
The objective of the Water Producer/PCJ project freshwater monitoring is to evaluate ecosystemic impacts from a project based in the PES economic instruments to stimulate the use of voluntary conservation practices for soil conservation, forest restoration in Permanent Preservation Areas (APP), and conservation of remaining forest fragments. Water Producer/PCJ project is a pioneering pilot project in Sao Paulo state which includes public-private partnerships [
- To characterize the natural freshwater quality of the catchments covered by the project that aims to contribute to the implementation of the respective PCJ/River Basin Plan.
- Determine the baseline of the project based on land-use/land-cover information, hydrologic data, questionnaires with information on environmental and socioeconomic perception;
- Assess hydrologic conditions and trends, concentrations of monitored pollutants and the expected limits for the re-systematization of water bodies;
- Identify areas with significant water quality changes;
- Give valuable inputs for the formulation of mitigating actions for the prevention and control of soil and water pollution;
- Assess the effectiveness of project actions and long-term adaptation strategies;
- Provide consistent information to assess the maintenance and future expansion of the project or its replication in other Brazilian regions through new PES public policies;
- Encourage the creation and maintenance of real-time monitoring database, which are able to release environmental alerts, reducing the vulnerability1 of the watersheds and productive areas occurring there.
The objectives of this work are: 1) assess the impact of conservation actions in the Water Producer/PCJ project through the hydrological monitoring plan (HMP) with key integration to EbA and Water-PES project strategies; and 2) support the incorporation of HMP elements through water resources management tools, such as: information systems, watershed management plan, freshwater quality standards, water rights concessions and water resources use fees according to the current norms [
The study area includes watersheds that, contribute to Piracicaba river, that along with Jundiaí and Capívari rivers, is managed within PCJ watershed committee, covering 15.304 km2. In the Sao Paulo portion of the PCJ river basin, the Water Resources Management Unit No. 5 (UGRHI-5) has 14.178 km2 (92.6% of the basin area), and the rest of the UGRHI-5 territory (7.4%) is located in Minas Gerais state. The PCJ basins have the higher economic development and per capita income in Brazil. However, due to the high population density (301 hab/km2), if compared to other Brazilian river basins, the use of this water is conflicting and eutrophication of the water sources is at an advanced stage [
Taking into account the availability of previous hydrologic information and the need of restoration in these microwatersheds, the catchments being part of the HMP activities were previously selected: Cancã (97 km2) and Cachoeira dos Pretos (130.4 km2), in Joanópolis, and Moinho (17.6 km2) in Nazaré Paulista (
Regarding the self-purification2 process of rivers and streams, hydrological monitoring is critical for understanding the changes of pollutant concentrations in different seasons [
Method | Key variable | Method | Unit |
---|---|---|---|
Systematic monitoring | pH | 40,500 H+-B-Electrometric method | -- |
Electrical conductivity | 2510 B-Laboratory method | µmho∙cm−1 | |
Turbidity | 2130 B | NTU | |
Water Temperature | 2550 B-Field and laboratory method | ˚C | |
Water level | Limnimetric scale | m | |
Air temperature | -- | ˚C | |
Relative humidity | Vapor pressure-temperature relationship | % (Pa/Pa) | |
Precipitation | Volumetric | mm | |
Radiation | Net radiation | W | |
Episodic Monitoring (seasonal campaigns) | Flow rate | Bathymetry and propeller; ADCP-Doppler | m3∙s−1 |
Dissolved Oxygen (DO) | 4500 OG-Electrode with membrane | mgO2∙L−1 | |
Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) | 5220 D-Colorimetric closed reflection method | mgO2∙L−1 | |
Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) | 5210 B-BOD test 5 days | mgO2∙L−1 | |
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) | 2540 C-Porcelain capsule | mg∙L−1 | |
Total Suspended Solids (TSS) | 2540 D-Membrane | mg∙L−1 | |
Total Nitrogen | 4500 NB-Macro Kjeldahl | mg∙L−1 | |
Nitrate (NO3) | 4500 NO3-B-Spectrophotometric method | mg∙L−1 | |
Nitrite (NO2) | 4500 NO2-B-Colorimetric method | mg∙L−1 | |
Nitrogen Ammonia (NH3) | 4500 NH3-C Titration method | mg∙L−1 | |
Total phosphorus | 4500 P-E-Ascorbic acid | mg∙L−1 | |
Escherichia coli | 9223 B-Enzyme-substrate test | CFU/100 mL−1 |
Land-use/land-cover (LULC) change impact ecosystems and the services they provide in diverse scales. Regarding hydrological services, LULC change is one of the most significant anthropogenic pressures which change water flows and modify regulating hydrological services [
The land-use/land-cover (LULC) changes of micro catchments contributing to public drinking supply are crucial for the production of water in adequate quantities and quality conditions [
To verify how anthropic activities for one hand and Water-PES actions, on the other hand, can further influence environmental quality, HMP investigates the past conditions (year 2003) and near current conditions (year 2010) of LULC (
sampling sites under LULC change, regarding water yield, seasonal flow-with-load regimes and ecohydrological variables. After 6 Hydro monitoring working group meetings and several studies, we conclude that specific conditions are crucial for effectivity of the hydrological monitoring. See Section 4.1.
Comparing LULC in years 2003 and 2010, regarding soil uses,
Although the Water Producer/PCJ project started in 2009, HMP is at an early implementation stage, which enhanced since 2013 onwards. We believe that this HPM enables posing questions such as: Do Water-PES’ actions of the Water Producer/PCJ project improve and conserve the water quality and water flow regulation in the headwaters under LULC changes of the Cantareira Water Supply System? To address answers through EbA methods, ecohydrologic experiments and modeling are needed. Using field campaigns (episodic monitoring) and official database (systematic monitoring) from agencies engaged in HMP at PCJ committees, i.e. CETESB, DAEE, SABESP, INMET, ANA, CODEAGRO, CEMADEN, human impacts on quali-quanti- tative freshwater regimes are verified [
From the EbA approach, the Integrated Group of River Basins (Núcleo Integrado de Bacias Hidrográficas, NIBH) of the Sao Carlos School of Engineering, University of Sao Paulo with support from The Nature Conservancy (TNC), drafted a HMP proposal for Water Producer/PCJ project based on the document “Water and Soil Monitoring Protocol―Water Producer Program” (Diederichsen et al., in press). This HMP is in accordance with the National Plan for Water Quality (PNQA) of Brazilian National Water Agency (ANA), and with part of the hydrological monitoring in Water Funds’ case studies in Latin America, organized by [
Metrics and indicators for evaluating PES effectivity are essential. Regarding the Water Producer/PCJ project, the HMP, especially
Then, to apply the quali-quantitative monitoring plan, which can further allow the assessment of PES implementation, some requirements are needed to monitoring sites selection. The first monitoring sites were determined based on scale compatible with Water-PES actions, aspects related to LULC changes and comparing EbA-reference catchments to catchments targeted of conservation actions of Water-PES in the scope of Water Producer/PCJ project (
Freshwater monitoring sites | Location | Geographical Coordinates | Drainage area (km2) | Monitoring |
---|---|---|---|---|
Sub-basin of intervention in the Cancã catchment | B. S. Silveira farm, Joanópolis, SP | 46W13'29", 22S54'42" | 2.01 | Water level sensor |
Sub-basin of reference in the Cancã catchment | D. R. Queiroz farm, Joanópolis, SP | 46W13'18", 22S53'11" | 1.26 | Water level sensor |
Cancã outlet | F30 site of SABESP Joanópolis, SP | 46W12'42", 22S56'06" | 97.00 | DCP (water level, pressure and temperature) |
Sub-basin of intervention in the Moinho catchment | B. da Silva farm, Nazaré Paulista, SP | 46W19'29", 23S13'19" | 3.10 | Water level sensor |
Sub-basin of reference in the Moinho catchment | R. Santalúciafarm, Nazaré Paulista, SP | 46W19'29", 23S13'58" | 0.66 | Water level sensor |
Moinho outlet | property of SABESP, Nazaré Paulista, SP | 46W21'33", 23S12'29" | 16.9 | DCP (water level, pressure and temperature) |
were performed at unappropriated areas, without planning, damaging water yield, as pointed by [
We found erosion field evidences in these subtropical Oxisols during in loco visits were expressive as previously related by [
In mid-2013, the monitoring includes two Data Collection Platforms (DCP), four fluviometric scales and two barologgers. Barometric readings are synchronized with the level readings. The equipment purchase, installation and maintenance are the responsibility of ANA, TNC, WWF and EESC/USP. The location of equipments installation was determined by the Hydrologic Monitoring Working Group (GTM-Hydro) of the Water Producer/PCJ project and it is shown in
1) Baseline conditions
Monitoring should be implemented preferably before start of LULC interventions. This is necessary to identify the baseline and to serve as a temporal analysis reference. The baseline can identify possible positive changes as a result of the expansion of ecosystem services promoted by the project, as well as ecohydrologic variables related, thereby
encompassing the integration of quali-quantitative variables.
2) Long-term monitoring
The PES pilot projects should necessarily have long-term monitoring. Regarding both quali-quantitative aspects, “long-term” is understood as a horizon span ranging between 30 and 50 years, to consolidate legal and socio-economic elements as well as LULC change. An operational framework is required to document the changes for the regular storing and analysis of the field data collection.
3) Scale compatibility with project actions
It is crucial to have a significant geographic scope, integrating PES interventions at local scales, which will promote the maintenance and recovery of native soil vegetation in the river basin scale, because it is assumed that the monitoring data obtained will reflect the expected benefits from the actions through EbA. However, it is not easy to implement forest restoration and soil conservation activities in a significant portion of the basin and within a short period of time.
Thus, it is recommended to implement the monitoring structure in the catchment scales scale, when there is a sufficient range of land use changes, to enable perceiving in the short term the impacts on water quality and flow regime.
4) Reference and intervention catchments
The improvement and maintenance of the water quality conditions and hydrologic regime will be included in the monitoring of catchments where the forest cover has changed significantly, named as “intervention” catchment. A property located in the same catchment was selected (which has the same physiographic, climatic and environmental characteristics), but with no significant change in the original vegetation cover (minimum of 80% of native vegetation cover), named as “reference” catchment.
Spatial monitoring (nested catchment experiment)
For the experimental catchments, monitoring quali-quantitative control sites of water yield is selected through Nested Catchment Experiment method (NCE) [
Temporal monitoring
The variables have to be collected 1) systematically (quantitative), with time interval as a fraction of the observed time of concentrations, i.e., the average response time of a rainfall-runoff process [
We also suggest using flow-load duration curves in the monitoring of the Water Producer/PCJ project, to describe the pollution loads according to flow rates, facilitating to visualize the quali-quantitative natural behavior of freshwater resources [
Regarding the Water Producer/PCJ project, the following actions can be envisaged with the freshwater monitoring here proposed: 1) Complement the water resources information system in the PCJ Watersheds Committee; 2) Incorporate the information system in ANA’s database (PNQA), using updated information from CETESB and DAEE, and CEMADEN (www.cemaden.gov.br); 3) Estimate the detailed water balance in experimental watersheds; 4) Anticipate the frequency curves of flow and loads; 5) Assess water availability for water use permission; 6) Anticipate the balance of pollutant loads and the re-categorizing of water bodies; 7) Estimate the green, blue and gray water flows, and their water footprint (according to [
Our study consists of a new hydrological monitoring proposal with variables that can be quantified in the flow and load duration curves. Advancing the monitoring of Water-PES projects contributes toward consolidating the Brazilian information system on water resources, improving hydrologic models, and updating the integrated environmental assessment. Besides, the hydrological monitoring here proposed can help obtaining short- and long-term Water-PES project performance, a scientific guideline for PES according to [
This work was supported by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation grants #2012/22013-4, “Assessing Hydrologic Services based on Grey Water Footprint: a case study in the headwaters of Cantareira Water Supply System”, and #2008/58161-1, “Assessment of Impacts and Vulnerability to Climate Change in Brazil and Strategies for Adaptation Options”.
Taffarello, D., Guimarães, J., de Sousa Lombardi, R.K., do Carmo Calijuri, M. and Mendiondo, E.M. (2016) Hydrologic Monitoring Plan of the Brazilian Water Producer/PCJ Project. Journal of Environmental Protection, 7, 1956- 1970. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jep.2016.712152