Dendrohydrological reconstruction of streamflow on the Coahuayana hydrological sub-basin, Jalisco State

Abstract

A dendrochronological network of conifers was developed for the Armeria-Coahuayana basin in southern Jalisco. A principal component analysis showed a common climatic response among the chronologies, therefore, they were integrated into regional representative chronologies of earlywood, latewood and total ring width with a length of 215 years (1800-2014), where the confident period for hydroclimate reconstruction extended from 1860 to 2014. The earlywood chronology had a significant association (r = 0.70, p < 0.01, 1952-2005) with the seasonal January-June gauged records of the Quito gage station located in the Coahuayana sub-hydrological region, Jalisco, and a streamflow model was developed for reconstruction purposes. The streamflow reconstruction showed high- and low frequency variability, where the extreme 1869-1876 drought could occur in coming years in order to take mitigation actions. The winter-spring streamflow in the Quito watershed is significantly influenced by the El Niño Southern Oscillation as corroborated by its association with the January-June SOI index (r = -0.47, p < 0.01, 1952-2014). Its influence is verified with the significant peak (3.21) detected in a power spectral analysis for the earlywood-chronology. Circulatory phenomena as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation showed a significant but comparatively lower association (r = 0.38, p < 0.01) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation was not significant.