chapter - Atmospheric and Oceanic Science

FOREWORD
This book is the result of the Project ¨ Trends in the Hydrological cycle of the
La Plata Basin: Raising awareness and new tools for water management¨. The project
has been funded by the grant SGP II 057 of the Inter-American Institute for
Global Change (IAI) in the framework of a programme for the elaboration and
publication of Technical Reports.
To a great extent, the Project was the result of a wider initiative funded by the
IAI, the Project CRN 055 ¨PROSUR¨ with focus on climate variability in the
southeast of South America. Part of the knowledge of the impacts of climate variability
in the hydrology of the Plata basin was developed in the PROSUR project
by researchers who took part of this new initiative. Later, these researchers joined
other investigators to develop the SGP II 057 Project.
The object of this book is to raise awareness in the hydrologic community of
the important changes that have occurred in the climate and hydrology of the La
Plata basin during recent last decades. In a context of global climate change and of
great regional changes, the assumption that series of climatological and hydrological
observations are stationary must be regarded with suspicion. This book therefore
presents an overview of the few available techniques for assessing future climate
and hydrology.
Vicente Barros Robin Clarke Pedro Silva Días
7