ABSTRACT. BACKGROUND:New sources of hydroclimate information based on forecast models and observational data have the potential to greatly improve the management of water resources in semi-arid regions prone to drought. Better management of climate-related risks and opportunities requires both new methods to develop forecasts of drought indicators and river flow, as well as better strategies to incorporate these forecasts into drought, river or reservoir management systems.

ABSTRACT. Study region:An area in NEA located within the La Plata Basin (LPB) where extreme precipitation events (EPE) are the most harmful and costly natural disasters. Study focus:The study analyzes the spatiotemporal behavior of EPE through a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) applied to fields of Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) at different time scales. The vulnerability of the NEA to EPE was estimated by defining the portion of the region experiencing extremely dry/wet conditions in critical months.

ABSTRACT. An investment over the next 10 years of the order of US$2 billion for developing improved climate models was recommended in a report (http://wcrp.wmo.int/documents/WCRP_WorldModellingSummit_Jan2009.pdf) from the May 2008 World Modelling Summit for Climate Prediction, held in Reading, United Kingdom, and presented by the World Climate Research Programme.

ABSTRACT. Soybean rust (SBR) is a disease of significant impact to Brazilian soybean production. Twenty-four locations in a major growing region in southern Brazil, where long-term (30 years) weather information was available, were selected to estimate the risk of SBR epidemics and identify potential predictors derived from El Niño 3.4 region. A rainfall-based model was used to predict SBR severity in an ?epidemic development window? (the months of February and March for the studied region) in the time series.

ABSTRACT. Destructive fires in Amazonia have occurred in the past decade, leading to forest degradation, carbon emissions, impaired air quality, and property damage. Here, we couple climate, geospatial, and province-level census data, with farmer surveys to examine the climatic, demographic, and land use factors associated with fire frequency in the Peruvian Amazon from 2000 to 2010.

ABSTRACT. The prevailing wet climate in the western Amazon is not favorable to the natural occurrence of fires. Nevertheless, the current process of clearing of humid forests for agriculture and cattle ranching has increased the vulnerability of the region to the spread of fires. Using meteorological stations precipitation and the Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Active-Fires (AF) during 2000?2009, we show that fire anomalies vary closely with July-August-September (JAS) precipitation variability as measured by the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI).

ABSTRACT. Fire is becoming a pervasive driver of environmental change in Amazonia and is expected to intensify, given projected reductions in precipitation and forest cover. Understanding of the influence of post-deforestation land cover change on fires in Amazonia is limited, even though fires in cleared lands constitute a threat for ecosystems, agriculture, and human health. We used MODIS satellite data to map burned areas annually between 2001 and 2010.

ABSTRACT The characteristic evolution of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on timescales of months to years means that risks to agriculture have structure between seasons and years. The potential for consecutive ENSO-induced yield anomalies is of particular interest in major food producing areas, where modest changes in yield have significant effects on global markets.