Workshop 4: Sunday February 21, 2010 (Half Day)

Field Tour of EARTH Wetlands Troject–Function of Small Natural Wetlands in the Humid Tropics

The objective of the workshop is to study the spatially and temporally complex hydrology of a natural wetland in the humid Tropics and their importance for watershed management in these regions. A field tour to visit the on-going wetland project in the rainforest within EARTH will serve to present the important wetland functions that are being studied in a cooperative project between EARTH and the University of Florida. An extensive hydrologic monitoring network consisting of 8 surface water stations, raingauge, outflow meter and fully instrumented runoff plots will be visited during the field tour. The main objectives of the project will be discussed: (1) to quantify and analyse the key components in the water balance; (2) to identify hydroperiod frequency and inter-annual water surface and storage variation during one year of water stages monitoring; (3) to assess the stability of the hydrologic response of the wetland as an indicator of predominant wet and dry trends through the year and natural water quality function potential.