The hydrological significance of cloud forests in the Sierra de las Minas Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala

This paper discusses the hydrological significance of socio-economic practices such as agricultural land use change and forest extraction to communities adjacent to the Sierra de las Minas Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala. Cloud forest hydrology differs from most environments because of the increased frequency of fog interception and fog precipitation. Fog precipitation occurs when intercepted cloud droplets coalesce on foliar and woody surfaces as fog filters through the canopy, and represents a significant proportion of the annual water inputs to cloud forests especially during the dry season. Interception data from this study showed that fog precipitation contributed greater than 7.4% of the hydrological inputs at 2550 m and less than 1% at 2100 m in the Sierra de las Minas. During the dry season fog precipitation contributed 19% of the hydrological inputs to the water budget of the cloud forest. Fog precipitation may be a significant hydrological input to the water resources of the local population. Socio-economic practices such as the conversion of cloud forest to agricultural land may decrease water resources for communities in Guatemala that demand greater quantities of water. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.