GC41D:
Extreme Climatic Events and Natural Disasters in Amazonia: How to Adapt and Mitigate? Posters


Session ID#: 8869

Session Description:
In the past ten years,  Amazonia -- home to half of the world’s tropical rainforests and one of the heat engines of the planet -- has experienced two major droughts considered 'once-in-a-century' events and several record floods that affected human settlements as well as regional ecosystems. The prolonged droughts induced tree mortality and facilitated extensive fires in old-growth rainforests that contributed to extreme smoke concentrations over parts of South America. The 2014 Madeira River and the 2015 Acre River floods generated damages on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars in southwestern Amazonia alone.  Regional governments and civil society are seeking adaptive measures to these increasingly frequent extreme events as well as means to mitigate them.   This session will bring together natural and social scientists to discuss the implications of recent research for public policies of adaptation to and mitigation of extreme events and natural disasters in Amazonia.
Primary Convener:  Irving Foster Brown, Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, United States; Federal University of Acre, MECO/PZ, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil
Conveners:  Jose A Marengo, Cemaden, Sao Jose dos Campos, SP, Brazil, Sassan S Saatchi, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States and Luiz Aragao, INPE National Institute for Space Research, Remote Sensing Division, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil
Chairs:  Irving Foster Brown, Federal University of Acre, MECO/PZ, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil; Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, United States, Sassan S Saatchi, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States and Jose A Marengo, CEMADEN National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters, Research and Development, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil
OSPA Liaison:  Irving Foster Brown, Federal University of Acre, MECO/PZ, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil; Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, United States

Cross-Listed:
  • H - Hydrology
  • NH - Natural Hazards
  • SI - Societal Impacts and Policy Sciences
Co-Sponsor(s):
  • IGBP: International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme -
Index Terms:

1630 Impacts of global change [GLOBAL CHANGE]
4321 Climate impact [NATURAL HAZARDS]
4352 Interaction between science and disaster management authorities [NATURAL HAZARDS]
6334 Regional planning [POLICY SCIENCES]

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Extreme seasonal droughts and floods in Amazonia: causes, trends and impacts (61466)
Jose A Marengo, CEMADEN, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
Strengthening Adaptation to Extreme Climate Events in Southwestern Amazonia: an Example from the Trinational Acre River Basin in the Madre de Dios/Peru – Acre/Brazil – Pando/Bolivia (MAP) Region. (68261)
Irving Foster Brown, Federal University of Acre, MECO/PZ, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil
Impacts of Landscape Context on Patterns of Wind Downfall Damage in a Fragmented Amazonian Landscape (68650)
Naomi Schwartz, University of British Columbia, Department of Geography, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Maria Uriarte, Columbia University, New York, United States, Ruth S DeFries, Columbia University, Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, New York, NY, United States, Victor Hugo Gutierrez-Velez, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States, Katia Fernandes, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, United States and Miguel Pinedo-Vasquez, Columbia University, Earth Institute Center for Environmental Sustainability, New York, NY, United States
Complex Socio-Ecological Dynamics driven by extreme events in the Amazon (69365)
Patricia FERNANDA Pinho, USP University of Sao Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
The Challenges from Extreme Climate Events for Sustainable Development in Amazonia: the Acre State Experience (71403)
Maria de Nazareth Mello Araújo, Governo do Estado do Acre, Rio Branco, Brazil
Drought Legacy and the Impacts on the Amazon Forest Carbon Exchange (77635)
Sassan S Saatchi, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States
Trying to Learn Lessons for Response to Extreme Events: Paradigm Shifts Affecting Civil Defense in the Trinational Region of Southwestern Amazonia (78343)
George Luiz Pereira Santos, Defensa Civil Rio Branco, Rio Branco, Brazil
Projections of climate change effects on discharge and inundation in the Amazon River basin (80761)
Rodrigo C. D. Paiva1, Mino Sorribas2, John M Melack3, Charles Jones4, Leila V Carvalho5, Juan Martin Bravo2, Edward Beighley6, Bruce Forsberg7 and Marcos Heil Costa8, (1)Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Institute of Hydraulic Research, Porto Alegre, Brazil, (2)UFRGS Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Institute of Hydraulic Research, Porto Alegre, Brazil, (3)University of California Santa Barbara, Earth Research Institute, Santa Barbara, United States, (4)University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Geography, Santa Barbara, United States, (5)University of California Santa Barbara, Department of Geography, Santa Barbara, United States, (6)Northeastern University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Boston, MA, United States, (7)National Institute of Amazonian Research, Manaus, Brazil, (8)UFV Federal University of Vicosa, Vicosa, Brazil
Is the seasonal forest more vulnerable to drought effects in tropical Amazonia (82066)
Liang Xu1, Sassan S Saatchi1 and Yan Yang2, (1)NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, (2)University of California, Los Angeles, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Proof of the Post-drought Effect of Amazonian Forests from Space (82449)
Yan Yang1,2, Sassan S Saatchi3, Liang Xu3, Yifan Yu3, Ranga B Myneni4, Yuri Knyazikhin5 and Sungho CHOI6, (1)University of California, Los Angeles, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (2)University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, (3)NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States, (4)Boston University, Department of Earth and Environment, Boston, United States, (5)Boston University, Earth and Environment, Boston, MA, United States, (6)Boston University, Earth & Environment, Boston, MA, United States
Ecological carbon sequestration via wood harvest and storage (WHS): Can it be a viable climate mitigation and adaptation strategy for the Amazon? (85398)
Ning Zeng, University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD, United States

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