TY - JOUR

T1 - Variation in the hydrological response within the Quebrada Seca watershed in Costa Rica resulting from an increase of urban land cover

AU - Brenes, Ricardo Bonilla

AU - Morales, Martín

AU - Oreamuno, Rafael

AU - Hack, Jochen

N1 - Funding Information: The publication of this article was funded by the Open Access Publishing Fund of Leibniz Universität Hannover. Funding Information: DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and CONARE-UCR (National Council of Rectors – University of Costa Rica) are funding the Ph.D. program for the student Jose Ricardo Bonilla Brenes through an ALECOSTA scholarship.

PY - 2023/5

Y1 - 2023/5

N2 - Urbanization is a global phenomenon which has provoked severe disruptions in hydrological cycles, resulting in flooding problems. While detailed studies exist for the world’s temperate zones, they are few for tropical zones where most of future urbanization may occur and where flooding is already a problem. A tropical watershed in Costa Rica was used to analyze the urban development and the associated hydrological response between 1945 and 2019, based on remotely sensed data and a numerical model. Using a detailed spatial-temporal approach, we found that the watershed’s overall urbanization over the timespan (+64%-points urban-areas) had led to major hydrological challenges (+80% runoff-volume, +220% peak-flow-rate and maximum-specific-discharge, and −25 min time-to-peak). These challenges were then placed in the context of historically reported flood events, providing a basis for spatially-differentiated flood mitigation actions and for guiding future urbanization. The study also provides valuable insights for other tropical regions with the same situation.

AB - Urbanization is a global phenomenon which has provoked severe disruptions in hydrological cycles, resulting in flooding problems. While detailed studies exist for the world’s temperate zones, they are few for tropical zones where most of future urbanization may occur and where flooding is already a problem. A tropical watershed in Costa Rica was used to analyze the urban development and the associated hydrological response between 1945 and 2019, based on remotely sensed data and a numerical model. Using a detailed spatial-temporal approach, we found that the watershed’s overall urbanization over the timespan (+64%-points urban-areas) had led to major hydrological challenges (+80% runoff-volume, +220% peak-flow-rate and maximum-specific-discharge, and −25 min time-to-peak). These challenges were then placed in the context of historically reported flood events, providing a basis for spatially-differentiated flood mitigation actions and for guiding future urbanization. The study also provides valuable insights for other tropical regions with the same situation.

KW - urbanization

KW - hydrology

KW - Flooding

KW - Costa Rica

KW - modelling

KW - remote sensing

KW - hydrological modelling

KW - Urbanization

KW - flooding

KW - land cover change

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85158879992&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/1573062X.2023.2204877

DO - 10.1080/1573062X.2023.2204877

M3 - Article

VL - 20

SP - 575

EP - 591

JO - Urban water journal

JF - Urban water journal

SN - 1573-062X

IS - 5

ER -