Climate risk assessment in tropical wetlands through integrated hydroclimatic, land cover, and community knowledge

Abstract

Climate-risk assessments in tropical wetlands increasingly combine hydroclimatic and land-cover data, but rarely integrate them with structured community evidence on experienced impacts and adaptation priorities. We address this gap in six communities around the Complejo Cenagoso de Zapatosa, a Ramsar site, and the Morales wetland in the Colombian Caribbean. We integrated hydroclimatic records and climate-extreme indices (1991–2020), land-cover change and runoff-potential analysis (1991–2020), flood-susceptibility modeling, and structured participatory evidence from 106 participants. Mean annual temperature increased by 0.4 °C decade−1, while warm nights and warm days increased by 17.1% and 17.3% decade−1, respectively; precipitation and precipitation-extreme indices showed no significant domain-mean trends. Forest cover declined by 1 122.9 km2, whereas flooded non-forest formations, agriculture/pasture mosaic, and oil palm increased by 800.9, 254.4, and 244.2 km2, respectively, altering runoff potential. Flood susceptibility was concentrated along floodplains and wetland margins (AUC = 0.95). Of 50 valid community-reported extreme-event records, 76.0% matched the expected sign of annual instrumental anomalies; both heat records matched, while agreement reached 91.3% for floods and 53.8% for droughts. Drought mismatches indicate that annual rainfall anomalies incompletely capture wetland drought, where dry-spell persistence, water-level change, and livelihood disruption shape local experience. Community priorities emphasized wetland restoration, hydrological connectivity, fisheries governance, livelihood diversification, and monitoring. Integrating technical and community evidence therefore revealed complementary climate-risk signals and the conditions under which ecosystem-based adaptation may be locally feasible.