Summary: | An integral, glacial and periglacial, inventory of the cryosphere in the Atacama region in Chile was carried out to estimate the amount of frozen water reserves in this arid to hyper-arid region. The inventory was carried out with medium to high spatial resolution satellite images and resulted in a total of 168,908 ha of landforms with significant ice content in one of the most fragile Andean ecosystems: the semi-arid – hyper-arid zones. This study shows an integral mapping of the cryosphere including glaciers and ice-bearing periglacial landforms. The different ice landforms in the Atacama region shows a progressive change in the landforms containing ice responding to the northwards increase of aridity upon entry to the South American hyper-arid axis. The main change observed is that uncovered glaciers are not present north of 26.5°S, being replaced by creeping permafrost landforms. Uncovered glaciers may produce more water annually compared to other ice-bearing landforms, but they only represent 2.7% of the cryospheric area. However, cryoforms containing a mixture of ice, sediment and rock fragments could be more important as water reserves because of their large extensions that cover c. 97% of the total area of ice-bearing landforms mapped. It also shows that the water-supply potential of ice-bearing periglacial landforms could be much higher than that of the glaciers in arid zones. The comparison with the previous inventory of 1987 suggests a reduction of 34% of uncovered glaciers, which is consistent with the aridization process observed in almost all of northern Chile. These findings reinforce the fact that glaciers and other types of permanent ice-bearing landforms need to be inventoried together if the objective is to provide the society with a realistic view of the distribution of the cryospheric hydrological resources in desert regions. Fil: García, Ayôn. Universidad de Atacama; Chile Fil: Ulloa, Christopher. Universidad de Atacama; Chile Fil: Amigo, Gonzalo. Universidad de Atacama; Chile Fil: ...
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