Effects of land cover change on hydrological responses of a large-scale basin in Brazilian Amazon

Conversion of tropical forests is considered a major environmental problem that has impacts on climate and hydrological regimes. The objective of this study was to analyse the effects of land cover changes on rainfall and streamflow of a large-scale catchment in the Brazilian Amazon. Using long time-series data, the statistical z-tests and t-tests were performed to verify the hydrological differences between two periods. The results confirmed an increase with high statistical significance in streamflow (p = 7 94E-05) and no significant variation in rainfall. The channel flow also showed an increase with high statistical significance during the high-flow and the low-flow seasons. The main achievement here is that the most previous studies that pointed to similar conclusions were developed through small catchments, controlled experiments, or theoretical hydrological models. Studies based on real data of large-scale basins like studies based on real data of large-scale basins mostly failed to detect the same trends.