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Local rainfall trends and their perceptions by Amazonian communities

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Abstract

Climate change in the Amazon region is the subject of many studies not only due to its stance as an emblematic ecosystem but also as a region where changes have been dramatic for over 30 years, mainly due to deforestation. We investigate how people settled in the Amazon perceive environmental changes by comparing these perceptions with satellite rainfall data for 12 sites representing the community diversity in the region. Perceptions are varied and agreement with physical, measured data is not always good. However, the arc of deforestation, where the downward trend of rainfall is more strongly observed, also appears as the region where the populations have the highest perception of rainfall change.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche which funded the DURAMAZ project (DURAMAZ-ANR-06-BLAN-0176).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LETG-Rennes-COSTEL, CNRS UMR 6554, Université Rennes 2, Place du Recteur Henri Le Moal, 35000, Rennes, France

    Vincent Dubreuil, Beatriz M. Funatsu & Véronique Michot

  2. Centro de Desenvolvimento Sustentável, Universidade de Brasília, Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro, Gleba A - Asa Norte, 70904-970, Brasília (DF), Brazil

    Stéphanie Nasuti

  3. Department of Geography, McGill University, Burnside Hall Building, Room 705 805, Sherbrooke Street, West Montreal, Quebec, H3A 0B9, Canada

    Nathan Debortoli

  4. Universidade de São Paulo, Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades, Rua Arlindo Béttio, 1000 Parque Ecológico do Tietê Ermelino Matarazzo, 03828-000, São Paulo (SP), Brazil

    Neli A. de Mello-Thery

  5. IHEAL CREDA UMR 7227 CNRS, 28 rue Saint-Guillaume, 75007, Paris, France

    François-Michel Le Tourneau

Authors
  1. Vincent Dubreuil
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  2. Beatriz M. Funatsu
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  3. Véronique Michot
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  4. Stéphanie Nasuti
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  5. Nathan Debortoli
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  7. François-Michel Le Tourneau
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Correspondence to Vincent Dubreuil.

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Dubreuil, V., Funatsu, B.M., Michot, V. et al. Local rainfall trends and their perceptions by Amazonian communities. Climatic Change 143, 461–472 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2006-0

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