Influence of Climate Variability on the Spatio-temporal Dynamics of the High Andean Wetlands of the Chicllarazo Microbasin. Period 1988-2022.

Abstract

High Andean wetlands are ecosystems that fulfill key ecological and socioeconomic functions, such as water regulation, biodiversity support, forage provision and recreational spaces. However, due to changing climatic conditions, they are considered fragile ecosystems, due to the sensitivity of the species they harbor and their dependence on water sources. Therefore, given the instability of climatic conditions, the objective of this research is to evaluate the influence of climate variability on the spatiotemporal dynamics of wetlands during the period 1988-2022, for which climatic data and Landsat 5, Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2 were used. The spectral classification of wetlands was carried out using the NDVI index within the range 0.436 to 1. The trend of climatic variables was determined using the Mann Kendall test, and the influence of climatic variables was determined using ANOVA and Kruskall Wallis. The results indicates that only accumulated precipitation influences the spatiotemporal dynamics of wetlands (P<0.05, R 2 =0.4838, ε 2 = 0.431) with a moderate effect and a dependency of 48.38% on precipitation. Keywords--High Andean wetlands, remote sensing, climate change, climate variability, Chicllarazo micro-watershedDigital Object Identifier: (only for full papers, inserted by LACCEI). ISSN, ISBN: (to be inserted by LACCEI).