Dr. Sergio Contreras is specialized in the ecohydrological functioning of native and agroecosytems of arid and semiarid regions, and its relation with human activities. During his career, Dr. Contreras has shown a special interest in the interactions and feedbacks between vegetation and groundwater, in the energy and water balance and in the biomass and agricultural productivity of these regions. His studies cover a broad range of spatial scales, from plot to regional, and methodological approaches (GIS and remote sensing, hydrological modeling, hydrochemical and isotopic techniques).
He was pre and postdoctoral researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) where he developed much of his scientific career, and did research stays in Australia, Argentina and USA. He has participated in several international and national research projects and contracts, and at present he is member of the International Association of Hydrogeologists and the American Geoscience Union. Sergio works in the FutureWater office in Cartagena, Spain.
Gerelateerde projecten
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Climate Trends and Projections for Olive Production, Andalucia, Spain
The primary goal of this research is to examine the climatic changes projected for two key regions in Andalucia, Spain, which are deemed crucial for olive production. The study analyzes trends and future projections concerning rainfall, temperature, river flows, and evapotranspiration rates, discussing their potential impacts on both the micro...
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Megadroughts in the water towers of Europe – from process understanding to strategies for management and adaptation
Megadroughts are rare and poorly understood hazards. They are defined as exceptionally severe, multi-year, prolonged (>5 years) periods of drought that impact severely large areas and different sectors of the economy and the environment (Cook et al., 2022). They are generally caused by the concurrence of extreme events of dryness...
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Catchment Assessment for Water Stewardship Plan
Highly productive berry farms and water scarcity are causing conflicts with the environmental assets and values of the Doñana National Park, Spain. There is growing interest in the agricultural sector to reverse this situation by implementing a water stewardship program. A catchment assessment is needed to produce baseline information to...
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WEAP Ground Water Modelling in Mozambique
Groundwater availability is critical to the Umbeluzi Catchment. Currently, there is a need for a simple tool that can asses the availability of resources in the ground. This especially to asses the permits for groundwater extractions. It is expected that a simplified modelling approach can provide a trend analysis sufficient...
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GLOW: Global Water Availability Forecasting Service to Support Water Security
The GLOW project aims to pilot an operational service that provides timely and easy access to current and forecasted water availability and demand across the entire Maputo River and the Black Umbeluzi River Basins.
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MAGDA: Meteorological Assimilation from Galileo and Drones for Agriculture
The MAGDA project aims at providing an integrated – but modular – system to provide severe weather forecasts and irrigation advisories enhanced by means of various satellite-borne, drone-borne and ground-based weather-observing technologies. The main applications will be in providing both warnings about severe weather that could affect crops and irrigation...
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SOS-Water: Water Resources System Safe Operating Space in a Changing Climate and Society
The SOS-Water Project endeavours to set out the boundaries within which the Earth’s capacity to provide life-support systems for humanity is not endangered, and humanity’s capacity to adapt to environmental changes is not overburdened. Crossing such thresholds or tipping points in the complex Earth system could result in abrupt and...
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BONEX: Boosting Nexus Framework Implementation in the Mediterranean
BONEX is a project funded by the PRIMA-EU Foundation specifically for the Mediterranean Region. This region faces several challenges to ensure future food and water security, whilst preserving ecosystems. BONEX explores and develops specific solutions promoting the linking of governance with practice to overcome barriers to WEFE (water, energy, food,...
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Groundwater Recharge in the Campo de Cartagena Quaternary Aquifer
This project (1) provides a critical review of previous results generated, and a SWOT analysis of hydrological simulation tools used in the area. (2) improve and update the quantification of the main water balance components, including vertical and lateral fluxes, at the basin scale in recent times (2000-2020 period) through...
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Water Risk Assessment for Private Farming in North Spain
This project aims to support a due diligence processs by reviewing and auditing water-related factors of risk for orchard fruit farming in including availibility and access, climate change impact, water quality, and potential conflicts and competence among water-demand users.
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Robust Decision Making for Land Use Planning in the Panama Canal River Basin
A Land Use Plan will be prepared for the river basin that belongs to and provides water for the Panama Canal. The regional plan (PIOTA) will set the framework, vision and direction for strategic planning and land use in the basin. For this purpose, the Panama Canal Authority and stakeholders...
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InfoSequia-4CAST: Forecasting and Quantifying Risks of Crop and Water Supply Failures Using Machine Learning and Remote Sensing
InfoSequia-4CAST combines historical and up-to-date observations of satellite-based meteorological and agricultural drought indices with climate variability indices, to generate seasonal outlooks of water supply and crop yield failure alerts. These impact-based indicators are computed using a simple, robust and easily understandable statistical forecasting-modelling framework. By making use of multi-sensor, state-of-the...
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G3P: Development of a Global Gravity-based Groundwater Product
Groundwater is one of the most important freshwater resources for mankind and for ecosystems, and has been declared as an Essential Climate Variable (ECV) by GCOS, the Global Climate Observing System. However, the Copernicus Services do not yet deliver data on this fundamental resource, nor is there any other data...
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Detection of On-farm Reservoirs in Irrigated Areas
The detection of on-site farm reservoirs and ponds in large areas is a complex task that can be addressed through the combination of visual inspection of orthophotos and the application of automatic pixel classification algorithms. This analysis performs a general workflow based on the usage of a Random Forest classifier...
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Satellite-based Monitoring of the Health Status of Grasslands at the Alagon Valley
This project is part of the technical-innovation support provided by FutureWater to ECOPRADERAS, an EIP-AGRI Operational Group which aims to improve the sustainable management of grasslands located at the Alagon Valley (Extremadura, Spain). Specific tasks included: the definition of a methodological framework for monitor the health of grasslands at the...
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Application of the Decision Tree Framework in the Chancay-Lambayeque Basin, Peru
The Chancay-Lambayeque watershed faces the challenges of rapid population growth and economic development in the presence of inadequate water supply, flood risk and environmental degradation. The study applies a step-wise approach, i.e. the World Bank’s Decision Tree Framework (DTF), to identify most important climate and nonclimate vulnerabilities for the system...
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TWIGA: Transforming Weather Water data into value-added Information services for sustainable Growth in Africa
TWIGA aims to provide actionable geo-information on weather, water, and climate in Africa through innovative combinations of new in situ sensors and satellite-based geo-data. With the foreseen new services, TWIGA expects to reach twelve million people within the four years of the project, based on sustainable business models. The TWIGA...
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HERMANA: Tool for Integrated Water Management
HERMANA aims to foster the development of an integrated water management decision support system (DSS) that supports daily, tactical and strategic decision-making related to water resources in Colombia, and specifically in the Cauca Valley Basin. The HERMANA tool will be a comprehensive system able to provide valuable, relevant, and reliable...
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Hydrogeological modeling of groundwater discharge to the Mar Menor lagoon
The groundwater discharge of irrigation return flows to the Mar Menor lagoon (Murcia, SE Spain), the largest coastal lagoon in Europe, is among one of the possible causes that would explain the high levels of eutrophication (hypereutrophication) and the several algal blooms accounted in this lagoon ecosystem in the last...
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IMPREX: IMproving PRedictions and management of hydrological EXtremes
FutureWater leads the coordination of the “Agriculture and Drought” sectoral Work Package of IMPREX. This WP specifically aims to study and evaluate the use of IMPREX weather forecasts and predictions, climate variability, and drought indicators to assess agricultural drought risk and impacts over four case studies and at the pan-European...
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Economic assessment of management alternatives in the protected areas of LAG Campoder
This project aims to advertise about the environmental assets found in the LAG Campoder at the Murcia Region (SE Spain), and to quantify using social and economic techniques the degree in which these assets are perceived by local population. FutureWater is responsible for the characterization and description of three representative...
Gerelateerde publicaties
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2024 - Technical report
Satellite-based Water Productivity of dominant croplands in the Jucar River Basin (Spain) by local implementation of WaPOR algorithm
Fernández-Rodríguez, A., S. Contreras, G. Simons
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2024 - FutureWater Report
Hydrological Assessment, Risk Analysis and Farming Opportunities in the Doñana Ecosystem and the Coast of Huelva (Spain): AWS Catchment Status Report
Contreras, S., M. Bea, J.E. Hunink
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2024 - Agricultural Water Management
How Future Changes in Irrigation Water Supply and Demand Affect Water Security in a Mediterranean Catchment
Eekhout, J.P.C., I. Delsman, J.E.M. Baartman, M. van Eupen, C. van Haren, S. Contreras, J. Martínez-López, J. de Vente
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2024 - ESA-Incubed Project Final Report (FREP)
Infosequia-4CAST: Towards an Operational Satellite-based Drought Early Warning and Forecasting System for Quantifying Risks of Crop and Water Supply Failures
Contreras, S., G.W.H. Simons, A. Fernández-Rodríguez
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2023 - Technical report
MAGDA: Water Balance Simulations
Verschuren, L., A. Fernández, M. de Klerk, S. Contreras, E. Aparicio Medrano
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2023 - FutureWater Report 234
InfoSequia-4CAST: Water Supply Pilot Case
Contreras, S., A. Fernández, J.E. Hunink, G.W.H. Simons
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2023 - FutureWater Report 235
InfoSequia-4CAST: Crop Yield Pilot Case
Contreras, S., A. Fernández, A. Grudnowska, M. Wens, G.W.H. Simons
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2023 - Technical report
Historical and Recent Patterns of Groundwater Recharge in the Campo De Cartagena Quaternary Aquifer by Combining Hydrological Modelling and Satellite Data
Contreras, S., J.L. García-Aróstegui, V. Robles-Arenas, J.E. Hunink
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2023 - Technical report
G3P-GDI InfoSequia Integration and Evaluation Report
Contreras, S., A. Fernández
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2023 - Technical report
G3P Evaluation Report
Urgilez-Vinueza, A., C. Ruz-Vargas, S. Contreras, T. Imran
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2022 - FutureWater Report 234
InfoSequia-4CAST: Report on InfoSequia-4CAST Development
Contreras, S., G. Guimarães, A. Fernández, S. Khanal, G.W.H. Simons
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2022 - FutureWater Report 235
InfoSequia-4CAST: Report on InfoSequia Monitor Upgrading
Contreras, S., C. Nolet, S. Khanal, A. Fernández, G.W.H. Simons
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2021 - FutureWater Report 230
InfoSequia-4CAST: Risk Assessment and Mitigation Plan
Contreras, S., G.W.H. Simons, A. Fernández
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2021 - FutureWater Report 229
InfoSequia-4CAST: Action Plan for Developing and Testing
Contreras, S., A. Fernández, G. Guimarães, G.W.H. Simons
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2021 - FutureWater Report 228
InfoSequia-4CAST: Baseline Design Report
Contreras, S., G. Guimarães, G.W.H. Simons, C. Nolet, J.Beard, S. Khanal, A. Fernández
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2021 - Technical Report
Plan Indicativo de Ordenamiento Territorial Ambiental (PIOTA) para la Cuenca Hidrográfica del Canal de Panamá (CHCP)
FutureWater - IDOM
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2020 - Internship report
Determining the dryness index and evaporative fraction for satellite and drone images
Faassen, K., C. Nolet, S. Contreras
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2020 - FutureWater Report 212
Monitor Ecopraderas: Seguimiento del estado de las praderas de la Vega del Alagón mediante indicadores de satélite
Contreras, S., C. Nolet, G.W.H. Simons
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2019 - FutureWater Report 197
Seasonal Hydrological Forecasting for the Segura River Basin, Spain
Hamed, R., A. De Tomas, S. Contreras, J.E. Hunink
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2019 - BRIGAID Internal Report
InfoSequia Testing Development Report
Contreras, S., J.E. Hunink
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2019 - FutureWater Report 186
Detection and coverage estimation of on-farm reservoirs and ponds in Mediterranean irrigated regions using orthophotos and pixel classification techniques
Contreras, S.
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2019 - E-Proceedings of the 38th IAHR World Congress
HERMANA: Co-Design of an Integrated Operational Water Management Tool For the Valle Del Cauca, Colombia
Ball, S., M.F. Sanchez, M. Werner, S.T. Escobar Carmona, C.Y. Soto Chavez, M. Wuis, S. Contreras, K. Douben, M. Visser, J.E. Hunink
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2019 - Water
A Simplified Water Accounting Procedure to Assess Climate Change Impact on Water Resources for Agriculture across Different European River Basins
Hunink, J.E, G.W.H. Simons, S. Suárez-Almiñana, A. Solera, J. Andreu, M. Giuliani, P. Zamberletti, M. Grillakis, A. Koutroulis, I. Tsanis, F. Schasfoort, S. Contreras, E. Ercin, W. Bastiaanssen
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2019 - Technical Report
El Marco del Árbol de Decisión: Aplicación a la Cuenca de Chancay-Lambayeque, Peru
Taner M.Ü., J.E. Hunink, S. Contreras, A. Hijar, R. Hamed, D. Morales, A. Wasti, P. Ray
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2019 - FutureWater Report 194
Satellite-based altimetry data for hydrological assessments: two case studies
Hunink, J.E., J.P.C. Eekhout, J. de Vente, S. Contreras, G.W.H. Simons
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2019 - Science of the Total Environment
Hydrogeological modelling for the watershed management of the Mar Menor coastal lagoon (Spain)
Alcolea, A., S. Contreras, J.E. Hunink, J.L. García-Aróstegui, J. Jiménez-Martínez
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2018 - Agricultural Water Management
Comparison of meteorological and satellite-based drought indices as yield predictors of Spanish cereals
García-León, D., S. Contreras, J.E. Hunink
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2017 - FutureWater Report 176
Cuantificación de la descarga subterránea al Mar Menor mediante modelización hidrogeológica del acuífero superficial Cuaternario
Contreras, S., A. Alcolea, J. Jiménez-Martínez, J.E. Hunink
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2017 - FutureWater Report 174
Water and carbon fluxes in irrigated citrus orchards assessed from satellite data
Contreras, S., J.E. Hunink, A. Baille
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2017 - Remote Sensing
Hydrological Modelling using Satellite-Based Crop Coefficients: A Comparison of Methods at the Basin Scale
Hunink J.E., J.P.C. Eekhout, J. de Vente, S. Contreras, P. Droogers, A. Baille
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2017 - FutureWater Report 167
Hydrological Evaluation and Ecosystem Valuation of the Lukanga Swamps
Hunink, J.E., S. Contreras, G.W.H. Simons, P. Droogers
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2016 - Agricultural Water Management
Effects of saline reclaimed waters and deficit irrigation on Citrusphysiology assessed by UAV remote sensing
Romero-Triguerosa, C., P.A. Nortes, J.J. Alarcón, J.E. Hunink, M. Parra, S. Contreras, P. Droogers, E. Nicolás
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2016 - Environmental Reviews
The role of groundwater in highly human-modified hydrosystems: a review of impacts and mitigation options in the Campo de Cartagena-Mar Menor coastal plain (SE Spain)
Jimenez-Martinez, J., J.L. Garcia-Arostegui, J.E. Hunink, S. Contreras, P. Baudron, L. Candela
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2016 - Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics
Vertical and lateral soil moisture patterns on a mediterranean karst hillslope
Cantón, Y., E. Rodríguez-Caballero, S. Contreras, L. Villagarcía, X.Y. Li, A. Solé-Benet, F. Domingo
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2015 - Agricultural Water Management
Estimating groundwater use patterns of perennial and seasonal crops in a Mediterranean irrigation scheme, using remote sensing
Hunink, J.E., S. Contreras, M. Soto-García, B. Martin-Gorriz, V. Martinez-Álvarez, A. Baille
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2015 - FutureWater Report 148
Scoping Assessment of Erosion Levels for the Mahale region, Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania
Hunink, J.E., W. Terink, S. Contreras, P. Droogers
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2015 - FutureWater Report 138
Water accounting at the basin scale: water use and supply (2000-2010) in the Segura River Basin using the SEEA framework
Contreras, S., J.E. Hunink
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2015 - FutureWater Report 141
Hydrological pre-feasibility assessment for the Romuku hydropower plant Central Sulawesi, Indonesia
Hunink, J.E., S. Contreras, P. Droogers
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2014 - Water Environment Research
Effects of reclaimed waters on spectral properties and leaf traits of Citrus orchards
Contreras, S., P. Pérez-Cutillas, C.S. Santoni, C. Romero-Trigueros, F. Pedrero, J.J. Alarcón
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2014 - Droughts: Research and Science-Policy Interfacing
Drought effects on rainfed agriculture using standardized indices: A case study in SE Spain
Contreras, S., J.E. Hunink
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2014 - FutureWater Report 125
Building a Watershed Information System for the Campo de Cartagena basin (Spain) integrating hydrological modeling and remote sensing
Contreras, S., J.E. Hunink, A. Baille
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2013 - Earth observation of ecosystem services
Detecting ecosystem reliance on groundwater based on satellite-derived greenness anomaly and temporal dynamics
Contreras, S., D. Alcaraz-Segura, B. Scanlon, E.G. Jobbágy
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2013 - Ecohydrology
Abrupt watercourse formation in a semiarid sedimentary landscape of central Argentina: The roles of forest clearing, rainfall variability, and seismic activity
Contreras, S., C.S. Santoni, E.G. Jobbagy
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2012 - Plant, Cell and Environment
Stand structure modulates the long-term vulnerability of Pinus halepensis to climatic drought in a semiarid Mediterranean ecosystem
Moreno-Gutierrez, C., G. Battipaglia, P. Cherebuni, M. Saurer, E. Nicolás, S. Contreras, J.I. Querejeta
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2011 - Environmental Earth Sciences
Diffuse and concentrated recharge evaluation using physical and tracer techniques: Results from a semiarid carbonate massif aquifer in southeastern Spain
Alcalá, F.J., Y. Cantón, S. Contreras, A. Were, P. Serrano-Ortiz, J. Puigdefábregas, A. Solé-Benet, E. Custodio, F. Domingo
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2011 - Catena
Controls of infiltration-runoff processes in Mediterranean karst rangelands in SE Spain
Li, X-Y., S. Contreras, A. Solé-Benet, Y. Cantón, F. Domingo, R. Lázaro, H. Lin, B. Van Wesemael, J. Puigdefábregas
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2011 - Journal of Hydrology
Remote sensing estimates of supplementary water consumption by arid ecosystems of central Argentina
Contreras, S., E.G. Jobbagy, P.E. Villagra, M.D. Nosetto, J. Puigdefábregas
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2010 - Water Resources Research
Vadose zone transport in dry forests of central Argentina: The role of land use
Santoni, C.S., E.G. Jobbagy, S. Contreras