Analysis of the drought resilience of Andosols on southern Ecuadorian Andean páramos

Abstract. The neotropical Andean grasslands above 3500 m a.s.l. known as "páramo" offer remarkable ecological services for the Andean region. Most important is the water supply – of excellent quality – to many cities and villages established in the lowlands of the inter-Andean valleys and to the coast. However, the páramo ecosystem is under constant and increased threat by human activities and climate change. In this paper we study the resilience of its soils for drought periods during the period 2007–2013. In addition, field measurements and hydrological conceptual modelling at the catchment-scale are comparing two contrasting catchments in the southern Ecuadorian Andes. Both were intensively monitored during two and a half years (2010–2012) in order to analyse the temporal variability of the soil moisture storage. A typical catchment on the páramo at 3500 m a.s.l. was compared to a lower grassland one at 2600 m a.s.l. The main aim was to estimate the resilience capacity of the soils during a drought period and the recovery during a subsequent wet period. Local soil water content measurements in the top soil (first 30 cm) through TDR were used as a proxy for the catchment's average soil moisture storage. The local measurements were compared to the average soil water storage as estimated by the probabilistic soil moisture (PDM) model. This conceptual hydrological model with 5 parameters was calibrated and validated for both catchments. The study reveals the extraordinary resilience capacity of this type of shallow organic soils during the droughts in 2009 and 2010. During these droughts, the soil water content dropped from a normal value of about 0.80 to ~ 0.60 cm3 cm−3, while the recovery time was only two to three months.