Adv. Geosci., 35, 157–167, 2014
www.adv-geosci.net/35/157/2014/
doi:10.5194/adgeo-35-157-2014
© Author(s) 2014. CC Attribution 3.0 License.
Advances in 
Geosciences
O
pen A
ccess
Weather and climate socio-economic impacts in Central America
for the management and protection of world heritage sites
and the Diquis Delta culture in Costa Rica (a case study)
J. A. Amador1,2 and E. J. Alfaro1,2,3
1School of Physics, University of Costa Rica, 11501 San Jose, Costa Rica
2Center for Geophysical Research, University of Costa Rica, 11501 San Jose, Costa Rica
3Center for Research in Marine Sciences and Limnology, University of Costa Rica, 11501 San Jose, Costa Rica
Correspondence to: J. A. Amador (jorge.amador@ucr.ac.cr)
Received: 6 February 2013 – Revised: 24 July 2013 – Accepted: 4 December 2013 – Published: 10 January 2014
Abstract. The Central America region hosts a valuable
amount of World Heritage Sites (WHS), many of them lo-
cated in areas of floods, landslides, drought, high winds,
intense precipitations, and earthquakes. The effective man-
agement of WHS requires the understanding of this type
of environmental phenomena and their potential impacts on
these sites. The objective of this work is twofold. To make
an analysis of some of the atmospheric systems (easterly
waves, cold fronts and tropical cyclones [TCs]) hitting Cen-
tral America, to estimate their effects on socio-economic
activities and potential impacts on WHS during the period
2002–2012. The second objective is to identify, for a case
study, the potential effects of hydro-meteorological events
associated with a tropical storm on the Diquis Delta region
in southern Costa Rica. This site, an important unique arche-
ological site of stone spheres, has been proposed by this
country as a WHS. To achieve both, public data bases like
HURDAT (North Atlantic Hurricane Database), and infor-
mation from regional newspapers and National Emergency
Committees, among other sources, were used for the study of
socio-economic impacts caused by these natural hazards. To
accomplish the latter, course resolution NCEP/NCAR (Na-
tional Center for Environmental Prediction/National Cen-
ter for Atmospheric Research) Reanalysis atmospheric data
served to initialize version 5 of a numerical atmospheric
mesoscale model (MM5). This approach permitted to ob-
tain higher resolution gridded data for a set of atmospheric
variables for a case study associated with the formation of
tropical storm Alma upon the Pacific basin. The MM5 re-
sulted winds and precipitation, among other variables, were
then used to evaluate potential impacts on the WHS region.
Among the systems analyzed for Central America, TCs were
the ones that most severely impacted regional social life and
worsened the already weak regional economies. During the
period analyzed, TCs affected regions where WHS are very
relevant to cultural life and touristic income. The MM5 de-
rived data shows its potential for providing detailed space-
time atmospheric data to help quantify and anticipate impacts
for WHS protection and management. The overall results are
expected to bring the attention of organizations and govern-
ments about the importance of socio-economic and cultural
losses associated with the impacts caused by natural hazards
near WHS in the region.
1 Introduction
Central America hosts a relatively high density of World Her-
itage Sites (WHS) in comparison to its geographical size;
many of these sites are situated in areas of floods, drought,
high winds and intense precipitations. This region has about
16 of these sites and 31 new proposals to UNESCO for World
Heritage, tangible and intangible. Most of these places are
vulnerable to volcanic and seismic actions, but are more of-
ten exposed to weather and climate impacts from both, the
Caribbean and Pacific basins. The effective management and
future protection of WHS requires understanding of the phys-
ical causes and the space-time evolution of this type of natu-
ral phenomena to take actions against their potential impacts.
Two major objectives are here pursued. Firstly, to analyze
Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.
158 J. A. Amador and E. J. Alfaro: Weather and climate socio-economic impacts in Central America
some meteorological systems, such as cold fronts, easterly
waves and tropical cyclones (TCs) hitting Central America,
in order to estimate their potential effects on socio-economic
activities upon the countries in the region that may prevent
and/or reduce the government’s investment in WHS manage-
ment and protection. The second objective using a case study
is to identify and understand potential impacts in a proposed
WHS in the Diquis Delta in southern Costa Rica (Fig. 1).
This region witnessed the flourishing of a unique archeolog-
ical and cultural site associated with ancient stone spheres
(Quintanilla and Badilla, 2001). To achieve the above objec-
tives, historical data on some extreme climate events, such
as floods and droughts associated with the above mentioned
systems was collected to assess the socio-economic impacts
in the region during the period 2002–2012. Socio-economic
data on the proposed archaeological site of stone spheres in
southern Costa Rica were gathered using an innovative ap-
proach. This entails the application of an atmospheric dy-
namical numerical model to increase the resolution of the
atmospheric data (e.g. wind, precipitation, and temperature)
over the region of the proposed WHS. The input for that
model is courser resolution meteorological data on a larger
space domain. The higher resolution data is expected to im-
prove the understanding of sub-regional meteorological im-
pacts under extreme conditions such as high winds, intense
precipitation and floods induced by a tropical storm. This de-
tailed information can help in the management and protection
of sites of cultural interest at regional scale. To the author’s
knowledge, this is the first approach of its kind in the study
of potential impacts on WHS by the use of atmospheric dy-
namical modeling.
This paper has been organized as follows. In the next sec-
tion, the region of analysis, Central America, is presented;
the main geographical and socio-economic characteristics
are discussed, followed by a description of the relevant re-
gional climate, to finish with a brief account of WHS in the
region (provided for the sake of completeness), and a dis-
cussion about the importance of the Diquis Delta archeolog-
ical site for social and cultural life in the region. The ef-
fect of climate impacts at regional scale is highlighted all
along this section. The third section, dedicated to data and
methods, gives information on climate data used to identify
the regional meteorological systems that hit Central America
in the period 2002–2012 for the analysis of socio-economic
impacts. Section 3 also contains the historical and socio-
economic information sources to match the analysis done
about the meteorological regional systems that impacted the
region. At the end of this section, the methods of analysis are
discussed, and a brief explanation of the numerical model
used and the dynamical downscaling technique required to
obtain high resolution atmospheric data is explained. Sec-
tion 4 presents the results for the regional analysis, the socio-
economic impacts due to the atmospheric systems analyzed
and the outcome of the numerical model application to the
Diquis Delta archeological site, focusing on the potential
Fig. 1. Geography of the Pacific slope of southern and central Costa
Rica showing the topography, the Diquis Delta (in purple), and
some of the cities located in that region.
meteorological impacts upon this region. Finally, Sect. 5 is
devoted to present the conclusions and some recommenda-
tions for future work to improve the management and pro-
tection of WHS in regard to weather and climate impacts.
2 The region of analysis: Central America
2.1 Geography and socio-economics: a brief overview
Central America is a relatively small bridge of land connect-
ing the sub-continents of North and South America, with the
Caribbean Sea (CS) to the east and the eastern tropical Pacific
(ETP) to the west. The location and topographical character-
istics of the Central America Isthmus in the Intra-Americas
Seas (IAS), formed by the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean
Sea, and the easternmost tropical Pacific, Central America,
and northwestern South America, defines most of its cli-
mate and its climate variability. The region’s climate is influ-
enced by the physical interaction of a wide range of weather
and climate systems at different time and space scales; from
local to regional (easterly waves, cold fronts, tropical cy-
clones, among others) to global scale signals such as El
Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and the America Mon-
soon System. The IAS, and as a consequence, Central Amer-
ica is one of the most impacted regions in the world in regard
to tropical cyclone activity and other hydro-meteorological
events (Alfaro and Quesada, 2010). Amador et al. (2010,
2012) and Amador (2011) reported major socio-economic
losses due to some of these natural hazards in recent years.
Although climate change impacts on this region may be se-
vere in the future (Hidalgo et al., 2013), the consideration of
this effect is well beyond the scope of this work.
With an estimated population of about 45 million,
some Central America countries maintain relatively weak
Adv. Geosci., 35, 157–167, 2014 www.adv-geosci.net/35/157/2014/
J. A. Amador and E. J. Alfaro: Weather and climate socio-economic impacts in Central America 159
economies (much of them based on agriculture and tourism,
and some on external commerce, transport and services)
in order to sustain relevant losses associated with weather
and climate issues to keep up with required social life
at minimum standards. According to the World Bank
(http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications/
country-and-lending-groups#Low_income, last access:
21 July 2013) most countries in Central America are
lower-middle-income economies (USD 1035 to 4085),
except Belize, Costa Rica and Panama considered as
upper-middle-income economies (USD 4086 to 12 615).
The socio-economic impacts of hydro-meteorological and
climate events are then very important for these nations
(see Amador et al., 2010; Amador, 2011), since they
jeopardize the efforts toward social development and put
at risk the preservation of its cultural roots and traditions,
especially their WHS (see a complete list of sites at
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list, last access: 21 July 2013).
2.2 Summary of regional climate
Among the climate hazards that affect the rich world her-
itage places of Central America are, the boreal winter cold
front intrusions reaching low latitudes (also known as cold
outbreaks or more locally as “Nortes” referring to the wind
intensity associated with the fronts). During summer-autumn
the region is affected by easterly waves and by the activ-
ity of two very active tropical cyclone regions, the Atlantic-
Caribbean and the Eastern Tropical Pacific. The IAS region
is characterized by climate features of unique nature. The
Mid-Summer Drought (MSD) or “veranillo” (in Spanish),
an atmospheric attribute rarely observed in tropical regions
(Magaña et al., 1999); the IAS or Caribbean low-level jet
during summer (Amador, 1998) and its winter counterpart
(Amador et al., 2006; Amador, 2008), a strong easterly cur-
rent over the CS; the Caribbean and ETP warm pools where
many tropical cyclones (TCs) form (Gray, 1979; Wang and
Enfield, 2001, 2003); and the strong convective activity of
the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). All these at-
mospheric signals strongly impact social and economic life
in the region (e.g. the MSD affects the agriculture sector, Ma-
gaña et al., 1999). Other details on socio-economic impacts
caused by TCs activity can be found in Amador et al. (2010)
and Amador (2011).
According to Alfaro (2000) and Taylor and Alfaro (2005),
the tropical maritime location temperature changes through-
out the region are generally small, and rainfall is by far the
most important meteorological element. In general the cli-
mate of the region is controlled by the migration of synop-
tic features, and the mean climate strongly reflects the an-
nual cycle of these systems. The most dominant synoptic
influence is the subtropical high of the north Atlantic; oth-
ers include: (a) the seasonal migration of the ITCZ, mainly
affecting the Pacific side of Central America; (b) the “tem-
porales”, a period of weak-to-moderate nearly continuous
rain, lasting several days and affecting a relatively large re-
gion (Hastenrath, 1991; Amador et al., 2003); and (c) west-
ward propagating tropical disturbances, a summer-fall sea-
son feature associated with much rainfall especially over the
Caribbean region.
Mean annual rainfall totals vary over a wide range in Cen-
tral America, partly in response to the diversity of topograph-
ical features. Analysis of the mean annual cycle of precip-
itation reveals two dominant modes. On the Pacific slope,
the first and more representative mode is characterized by
two rainfall maxima in June and September–October, an ex-
tended dry season from November to May, and a shorter re-
duced precipitation period during July–August (MSD). This
regime, except the MSD, is largely explained by the seasonal
migration of the subtropical north Atlantic high and the ITCZ
(Alfaro, 2002; Taylor and Alfaro, 2005).
The dry season of winter and early spring is more intense
on the Pacific slope of the isthmus, possibly due to an ad-
ditional drying effect caused by the seasonal reversal of the
winds on the Pacific side which blow offshore during winter.
The ITCZ is also at its maximum southeast position during
February and March. The season is further characterized by
strong Atlantic trades, high values of total radiation and sun-
shine hours in the low troposphere levels. The mean onset of
the rainy season is in May. The latitudinal variation may be
partially explained by the northward migration of the ITCZ
that causes instability and humidity convergence in southern
Central America from boreal late spring to early fall. The
Caribbean coast exhibits a second rainfall mode, different
from the dominant dry-winter/wet-summer regime. It is diffi-
cult to define a dry season for this region as rainfall is nearly
homogeneous between January and the middle of October.
From mid-October onwards there is a marked increase in pre-
cipitation accumulation until the end of the year, with a max-
imum at the beginning of December. This maximum could
reflect the influence of cold fronts over the North-Caribbean
Central American coast during boreal winter and/or the in-
tensification of the winter trade winds which transport hu-
midity and produce precipitation on the windward side. Sig-
nificantly, there is no rainfall minimum in July, but instead
a relative maximum characterizing the mode 2 region. This
might result from the low-level jet influence and the inter-
action between topography and the low-level wind (Amador,
1998, 2008). Interestingly it is the same mechanism (i.e. the
intensification of the trades) which both yields the MSD over
most of Central America and makes the Caribbean slope wet-
ter than the Pacific slope during July (Alfaro, 2002; Taylor
and Alfaro, 2005).
2.3 World Heritage Sites
There are 16 UNESCO WHS in Central America. Some
are, Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System (Belize), Antigua
(Guatemala), Joya de Cerén Archeological Site (El Sal-
vador), Maya Site of Copan (Honduras), Ruinas de Leon
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160 J. A. Amador and E. J. Alfaro: Weather and climate socio-economic impacts in Central America
Table 1. World Heritage Sites in Central America impacted by environmental phenomena during 2008–2012 (last access: 21 July 2013).
Date WHS Socio-economic Sources of information
(dd/mm/yyyy) impacts
8 Oct 2008 Ruinas de Leon Floods, 12 deaths, Europapress, Spain
4970 people affected, http://www.europapress.es/
921 families in shelters
1 Apr 2011 Antigua Guatemala Floods El Metropolitano, Guatemala
http://antigua.elmetropolitano.com.gt/
17 Oct 2011 Joya del Ceren Floods El Nuevo Diario, Nicaragua
http://impreso.elnuevodiario.com.ni/
2 Jun 2012 Antigua Guatemala Floods and damaged roads Siglo 21, Guatemala
http://www.s21.com.gt/
5 Aug 2012 Panama Viejo Floods, 402 people affected Panamerica, Panama
http://www.panamaamerica.com.pa/
27 Sep 2012 Panama Viejo 60 families relocated Prensa, Panama
http://www.prensa.com/
Viejo (Nicaragua), Area de Conservacion Guanacaste and
Cocos Island National Park (Costa Rica), Parque Nacional
La Amistad (Costa Rica and Panama), and Coiba National
Park (Panama). Most of them are vulnerable to hydro-
meteorological phenomena from both the Caribbean and Pa-
cific basins, such as cold fronts, easterly waves (e.g. the Be-
lize Barrier Reef), and TCs impacts and intense precipitation
from ITCZ (practically all of them). The WHS on the Pacific
side of Central America located near steep slopes are suscep-
tible to be impacted by intense precipitations and landslides
due to the direct effect of TCs upon the Pacific basin and/or
the indirect effect (high winds and induced topographic pre-
cipitation) from TCs over the Caribbean basin. The Diquis
Delta site (see Fig. 1) is precisely located to the west of a re-
gion of steep slopes along the Talamanca Cordillera in south-
ern Costa Rica and subject to heavy precipitations, land-
slides and associated erosion due to the latter effect. The
following two studies are good examples of the vulnerabil-
ity WHS and other cultural sites to environmental phenom-
ena impacts. Salgado (2005), in his study about landslides
and floods in the Gila River in Honduras reports that Hurri-
cane Mitch (22 October–5 November 1998) seriously dam-
aged the region of the Copan Ruins, a well known WHS in
Honduras. More recently, Obando and Peraldo (2011) point
out the importance of controlling by means of engineering
work, the surface runoff, near the Guayabo National Mon-
ument in Costa Rica, to avoid the risk of damaging floods.
Table 1 reveals some examples of environmental impacts on
regional WHS during the period 2008–2012.
2.4 A proposed site for WH: the Diquis Delta culture
and the stone spheres
According to Quintanilla and Badilla (2001), available infor-
mation shows that the Diquis Delta in southern Costa Rica
was barely populated until the beginning of XX century. In
contrast, archeological data indicates that the area was the
home of an important native culture between 800–1500 AC.
This culture built diverse architectonic places for living,
buried its deaths, erected public sculptures, and managed in-
dustries such as metallurgy, bone carving and the manufac-
ture of stone and pottery artifacts. The above authors stressed
the importance of the frequent floods over that region in the
distribution pattern of archeological sites, so that these events
forced the occupation, evacuation and possibly the reoccupa-
tion of the settlements. Quintanilla and Badilla (2001) bring
the attention to one of the first reported floods in the his-
tory of Costa Rica. In 1552, Gil Gonzalez Davila, a Spanish
explorer, traveled across southern Costa Rica and described
his stay at a native settlement in the Diquis Delta. He ac-
counted for a big flood that strongly affected this site. An
important finding of Quintanilla and Badilla (2001) is that
ancient floods may be responsible for the vertical distribu-
tion of archeological artifacts in the soil layers (from 0.7 to
2 m. deep), some of which were dated as back as 1000 AC.
A detailed description of the different soil layers found in
archeological sites, including some of sedimentary origin,
is also given by these authors. Among the most important
archeological contributions of the Diquis Delta culture, are
the stone spheres, some of which have diameters from 0.1 to
2.5 m. (Quintanilla, 2007). This author also reports that more
than 300 spheres were sculptured for public use by the Diquis
Delta culture. Figure 2 shows one of the spheres of approx-
imately 1.5 m. in diameter located currently in “Finca 6”, in
southern Costa Rica. As can be noted, the stone appeared
buried by a thick layer of soil and mood, presumably as a
result of floods and erosion.
At this point, several questions emerge. To what extent
may floods be the result of intense precipitation associated
with TCs, either directly or indirectly induced? In regions
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J. A. Amador and E. J. Alfaro: Weather and climate socio-economic impacts in Central America 161
Fig. 2. Stone sphere of approximately 1.5 m. in diameter located
currently in Finca 6, in southern Costa Rica (courtesy of Costa
Rica archeologist Ifigenia Quintanilla). Note the different soil layers
around the sphere, presumably as a result of floods and erosion.
with scarce meteorological information, can numerical mod-
eling help to improve time-space atmospheric data for deci-
sion making in regard to management and protection of cul-
tural, social life and the WHS? An attempt to answer these
questions is presented in the conclusions and recommenda-
tions section below.
3 Data and methods
3.1 Climate data
Data used to feed the atmospheric numerical model MM5
(see Sect. 3.3 below for an explanation of the model) are from
the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Reanal-
ysis (described in detail by Kalnay et al., 1996). These data
has a relatively course space resolution of about 250 km in
all meteorological parameters used (e.g. wind, pressure, tem-
perature, moisture, etc., at the surface and at different atmo-
spheric levels). The time resolution for all variables is usually
six hours for any given period. Although Reanalysis data is
available all over the globe, its course space resolution of
about 250 km in grid size makes impossible its use in local
impact studies at the WHS level. Here is where the dynam-
ical downscaling technique is of great utility (see Sect. 3.3
below). The NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis served then as input to
the MM5 to obtain higher spatial resolution data to analyze
at that level the potential meteorological impact of a tropical
cyclone on the Diquis Delta region on southern Costa Rica.
Cold fronts, easterly waves and tropical cyclones occurrences
hitting Central America and having an impact in the region
were considered as study objects. This information was an-
alyzed for 2002–2012 and match with the press information
to identify socio-economic impacts (see next section for in-
formation sources).
3.2 Historical and socio-economic information sources
For the study of regional impacts caused by natural hazards,
public data bases like HURDAT (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/
hrd/hurdat/newhurdat-format.pdf, last access: 21 July 2013)
or EMDAT (http://www.emdat.be/, last access: 21 July 2013)
were used. It is to be noted, however, that these data bases
have two major limitations for local impact studies. First, the
methodologies used and the institutions in charge to quantify
the information, are sometimes different during its historical
development; and second, some local events are not consid-
ered relevant for regional or basin scale, although some of
them may be significant for local purposes. For the reasons
mentioned above, this study reviewed information sources
like national newspapers (e.g. La Nacion, www.nacion.com,
last access: 21 July 2013) and, bulletins and documents pro-
duced by the regional National Meteorological Services in
Central America to account for relevant climate events and
their associated impacts in the region. Information from the
regional National Emergency Committees that communicate,
either via web sites or documents, socio-economic informa-
tion associated with reported regional impacts, was also con-
sidered. In Costa Rica, data came from the National Me-
teorological Institute (http://www.imn.ac.cr/boletin_meteo/
historial%20boletines.html, last access: 21 July 2013). As
discussed in the earlier section of regional climate, systems
are recurrent in Central America (but of course, of non-
periodic nature), so that past socio-economic damage due to
these systems might be seen as an indicator of future risks to
WHS, especially in regard to certain type of systems such as
tropical cyclones.
3.3 Methods
Monthly meteorological bulletins, produced by the regional
National Weather Services were revised from 2002 to 2012
and information related with potential weather and/or cli-
mate hazards that affected Central America was extracted.
This information was matched against the boreal winter cold
front intrusions, to easterly waves travelling across the re-
gion, and to the activity of the two tropical cyclone regions
(the Atlantic-Caribbean and the eastern tropical Pacific) dur-
ing boreal summer-autumn. The documentation associated
with one particular event was systematized in indices con-
taining the start and end dates of the impact, the number
of locations/regions affected, the sequence number of the
event and the name in the case of TCs. After that, the in-
formation was bi-weekly and annually aggregated for anal-
ysis in time and then summarized. For Costa Rica an analy-
sis in space, limited in few cases by poor press information,
was also done to account for extreme rainfall events associ-
ated with the climate hazards mentioned above, considering
that it is an important meteorological factor associated with
the stone spheres degradation by weathering, landslides and
erosion. The main categories used to aggregate the impacts
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162 J. A. Amador and E. J. Alfaro: Weather and climate socio-economic impacts in Central America
include: floods, strong rains, landslides, tornado-like occur-
rences, atmospheric electricity, strong winds, infrastructure
damage and deaths. These climate impacts can affect directly
WHS infrastructure and surrounding social life and can de-
stroy roads and bridges accessing WHS in vulnerable areas.
For the case study using the MM5 model, it is important to
mention that southern Costa Rica, where the proposed WHS
is located, has few meteorological stations to make a detailed
analysis of meteorological variables for application to im-
pact studies. Numerical modeling is an important tool that
can be used to better understand weather and climate im-
pacts in at least three ways. First, simulations can be used
by forecasters to advice and help in the management of any
possible emergency situations at any specific WHS. Second,
it can also be used to fill missing information in space and
time that is not available for the region, helping additionally
in the attribution process of the information collected from
different sources like press or radio broadcasting. Third, nu-
merical models can be used, as is the case proposed in this
work, to increase the space-time meteorological resolution in
order to identify regions of extreme events in winds, precip-
itation, and other variables, to perform detailed studies and
projections about socio-economic impacts near WHS loca-
tions. The process of using courser resolution atmospheric
data such as that of NCEP/NCAR to obtain higher resolution
information by the use of a numerical model is called dy-
namical downscaling. The study case presented here is about
learning more about the atmospheric conditions leading to
impacts due to TCs in southern Costa Rica (the site of the
stone spheres). To achieve the above goal then, an atmo-
spheric dynamic model (MM5) was run on a local computer
cluster. The Pensylvania State University/NCAR mesoscale
model (known as MM5) is a limited-area, nonhydrostatic,
terrain-following sigma-coordinate model designed to sim-
ulate or predict mesoscale atmospheric circulation (see, http:
//www.mmm.ucar.edu/mm5/. The MM5 used a basic config-
uration of 22 vertical sigma levels at four domains with spa-
tial resolutions of 90, 30, 10, and 3.3 km, respectively. Phys-
ical options for the MM5 (Grell et al., 1995) model simu-
lations include Grell’s cumulus parameterization, the cloud
radiation scheme (chosen to account for diurnal variations),
and the Blackadar scheme for the planetary boundary layer.
The model was initialized using NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis
data (Kalnay et al. 1996) from 27 May 00Z to 30 May 06Z,
2008 to obtain higher resolution atmospheric data to make a
more detailed meteorological analysis over the Diquis Delta
region. The period used corresponds partly to the tropical de-
pression that headed to the formation of tropical storm Alma
upon the Pacific basin. Only data for the 27 May 2008 is
shown here at the 3.3 km resolution domain to illustrate the
severe atmospheric situation that caused abundant impacts in
that region. A comparison with observed precipitation from
a work by Stolz and Chinchilla (2008) is also made in order
to assess MM5 results as a potential input for archeological
site impact studies.
Fig. 3. (a) Loses in millions of $USA per country in Central
America due to tropical cyclone activity (TC) and other hydro-
meteorological events (OHE) and, (b) total loses in millions of
$USA per year in Central America due to TC and OHE during
2002–2012. Dollar amounts are for the years in which the event
was recorded, so quantities are not corrected by inflation.
4 Results
4.1 Regional impacts
It was observed from all information sources that TCs were
the hazards having more impacts in both, losses in terms of
millions of dollars of the United States of America ($USA)
and deaths in Central America (Figs. 3 and 4, respectively),
when compared with other hydro-meteorological events dur-
ing the period 2002–2012. Note however, that years having a
great impact in losses as 2010 and 2011 (Fig. 3) do not nec-
essarily correspond with years of great impacts in terms of
deaths as 2005 (Fig. 4). Notice that deaths could be used as a
variable associated with the magnitude of the impact which
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J. A. Amador and E. J. Alfaro: Weather and climate socio-economic impacts in Central America 163
Fig. 4. (a) Number of victims per country due to tropical cyclone
activity (TC) and other hydro-meteorological events (OHE) and,
(b) number of victims per year due TC and OHE during 2002–2012.
in turn can be related to the degree of emergency attendance
in a WHS.
The main impact from all variables analyzed was due to
heavy rainfall events of convective origin. TCs are the main
flood producers, associated with the so-called “indirect ef-
fect” of a low pressure system located either in the CS or
the ETP, on the Central America Pacific slope (Peña and
Douglas, 2002). Those impacts are mainly concentrated from
May to October, with 2010 as the year that concentrated
the main quantity of impacts from the analyzed record. This
could be associated with the dipole configuration of warmer
tropical Atlantic and colder eastern equatorial Pacific around
the isthmus during most of the 2010 rainy season, especially
during its second peak. This dipole configuration has been
shown to favor a more active rainy season on the Pacific slope
of Central America (Enfield and Alfaro, 1999; Maldonado
et al., 2013). Cold fronts have a smaller quantity of impacts
on the South Pacific in 2002–2012 when compared with the
other two hazards, and are mainly associated with strong
winds. Reviewing the press information, 13 of these events
were widely covered by media confirming that TCs and east-
erly waves are the main sources of atmospheric impacts (Ta-
ble 2). Of special interest was the year of 2005 that also pre-
sented a peak in the Atlantic basin due to TCs activity.
When the impact information from southern Costa Rica
Pacific is compared with other regions in the country, it
was observed that Central Valley concentrates the main
quantity. This region hosts most of the Costa Rica popu-
lation with the higher level of exposition and vulnerability
to hydro-meteorological hazards. This means that other so-
cioeconomic variables should be included to explain high
impact values in the Central Valley. This result agrees with
the analysis presented by Alfaro et al. (2010), Alfaro and
Quesada (2010) and Maldonado et al. (2013).
4.2 The Diquis Delta region in southern Costa Rica
As a study case, a tropical cyclone (main climate hazard iden-
tified for the region) was simulated using a mesoscale numer-
ical model. Results for the MM5 runs are shown in Fig. 5.
The large scale flow with a resolution of 30 km associated
with the position of the storm is illustrated in Fig. 5a, the
corresponding precipitation is shown in Fig. 5b. The trop-
ical depression induced an intense low-level wind that con-
verged at the base of the Talamanca mountain range in south-
ern Costa Rica (observed at the 3.3 km resolution domain at
925 hPa in Fig. 5c). Heavy accumulated precipitation associ-
ated with this tropical depression is observed in the model
output for the period 27 May from 06:00–18:00 LT (local
time) (Fig. 5d). The purple solid line in Fig. 5c and d, illus-
trates the approximate region of the Diquis Delta archeologi-
cal site. Notice that the information presented in Fig. 5 can be
used to fill missing information in space and time for the case
of regions where data from meteorological station network
stations is not available for any specific WHS. This approach
helps in the attribution process of the information collected
from different sources like press, television and radio broad-
casting. The convective activity and associated precipitation
was intense and long lasting causing serious effects on pop-
ulation and infrastructure (see Table 2). Figure 1 shows the
location of the places mentioned in Table 2. According to
the National Meteorological Institute (Stolz and Chinchilla,
2008), the Pacific slope of Costa Rica registered the main
impacts, in terms of accumulated precipitation in Costa Rica
during 28–29 May, however rainfall was also important on
the 27 May. The average recorded rainfall by automatic mete-
orological stations for 28 May were for North Pacific 69 mm,
central Pacific 146 mm, south Pacific 94 mm, Central Valley
59 mm, northern region 77 mm and Caribbean 1.6 mm. The
average values for 29 May were for north Pacific 47 mm,
central Pacific 179 mm, south Pacific 83 mm, Central Valley
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164 J. A. Amador and E. J. Alfaro: Weather and climate socio-economic impacts in Central America
Table 2. Socio-economic impacts due to hydro-meteorological activity during the period 2002–2012 in the south Pacific slope of Costa Rica
according to press reports.
Date Towns and Socio-economic Sources of Atmospheric
(dd/mm/yyyy) cities affected impacts information system
23 Oct 2004 Isla Violín, Three deaths, water NEC, CRRC, Tropical wave and ITCZ
Puerto Jiménez, and electricity cuts, PF, La Nación
Golfito landslides, more than
100 damaged houses
18 Jul 2005 La Gamba, One injured, NEC, NMI, Hurricane Emily (indirect effect)
La Viquilla, 5 collapsed bridges, La Nación
La Julieta 50 damaged houses
17 Nov 2005 San Vito de More than 300 people Golfito and
Tropical Storm Gamma
Coto Brus- evacuated, 1200 in Corredores’
Ciudad Neily, shelters, water cuts, LEC, PF,
Río Claro- severe damage in rice La Nación
Golfito y Río and banana plantations
Claro-Palma
Sur
20 Nov 2005 Corredores, 17 public schools SSI, NEC,
Golfito closed, 516 damaged La Nación
houses, 600 people in
shelters
26 Nov 2005 Potrero Grande One bridge collapsed, NEC, La Nación Cold front intrusion 23 Nov 2005
y Golfito 15 damaged houses
28 May 2008 Cobano, Parrita, Two deaths, one NEC, NMI, Tropical storm Alma
Lepanto, person missing, 65 La Nación
Paquera injured, water and
electricity damages,
866 people in
shelters, 139
damaged bridges,
houses and public
schools with
damages,
approximately
USD 40 million
19 Oct 2008 Paso Canoas, Damaged houses and PF, NMI Tropical Depresion 16
Corredores civil establishments
1 Nov 2009 Golfito 10 damaged houses PF, NEC, NMI, Tropical Depresion 11
La Nación
25 Jul 2010 Golfito, 10 damaged houses PF, NMI, Tropical wave 28
Corredores La Nación
21 Aug 2010 Corredores y One person missing, Golfito LEC, Tropical wave 37
Golfito 20 families in CRRC, NMI,
shelters, several La Nación
damaged houses
23 Oct 2011 Osa, Golfito, 135 people in shelters NEC, NMI, Low pressure system and ITCZ
Corredores CRRC, Firemen,
PF, La Nación
16 Oct 2012 Parrita, Quepos, Landslides NMI, PF, La
Tropical storms Sandy and Tony
Palmar Norte, Nación
Buenos Aires
23 Oct 2012 Zona Sur Landslides NEC, NMI,
La Nación
Adv. Geosci., 35, 157–167, 2014 www.adv-geosci.net/35/157/2014/
J. A. Amador and E. J. Alfaro: Weather and climate socio-economic impacts in Central America 165
Fig. 5. MM5 mean simulations for 27 May 2008 from 06-18Z of tropical depression that conducted to the formation of tropical storm Alma
for (a) wind vector at 925 hPa at a domain with a resolution of 30 km; (b) accumulated precipitation at a domain with a resolution of 30 km;
(c) same as (a) but for a domain of 3.3 km resolution; and (d) same as (b) but for a domain with of 3.3 km resolution. The purple vertical
solid line in (c) and (d) denotes the region near the Diquis Delta in southern Costa Rica, home of the archeological site of the stone spheres.
88 mm, northern region 69 mm and the Caribbean with less
than 1 mm.
5 Conclusions and future work
Central America is home of several very important WHS for
its culture and nature. Most of the WHS are localized in ar-
eas of extreme events such as high winds, intense precipita-
tion, landslides, and floods, among other natural hazards. The
study of the meteorological systems associated with those
events is crucial to understand not only local environmen-
tal phenomena and its likely causes but to account for and
help in the prevention of similar situations causing relevant
socio-economic impacts. This type of work is also useful
in helping governments and institutions, dealing with con-
servation and promotion of cultural and natural sites, in the
amelioration and prevention of impacts that may put at risk
WHS. The geographical location and topographical charac-
teristics of the Central America Isthmus in the IAS defines
most of its climate and its climate variability, so the study
of these signals is fundamental for socio-economic life in
the region. Among the climate hazards that affect the world
heritage places of Central America is the boreal winter cold
front intrusions. During summer-autumn the region is also
affected by easterly waves and by the activity of two tropical
cyclone regions, the Atlantic-Caribbean and the eastern trop-
ical Pacific. Historical and press data were used to construct
a set of socio-economic impacts due to the above systems
during the period 2002–2012. The economic impacts of TCs
over Central America during the period analyzed were very
high (Fig. 3a and b) for the already weak regional economies
putting at risk many of the World Heritage Sites. The num-
ber of casualties due to TC impacts during the last decade
was also dramatically elevated (Fig. 4a and b). Additionally
to this, Central America has about 31 new proposals to UN-
ESCO for World Heritage, tangible and intangible, as the Ar-
chaeological Site of Stone Spheres in the Diquis Delta in the
south Pacific region of Costa Rica. Easterly waves and tropi-
cal cyclones are the systems with more hydro-meteorological
effects in the south Pacific region in Costa Rica for 2002–
2012. The main impact is trough heavy rainfall events, but
TCs are the main flood producers, mainly concentrated from
May to October (Table 2). Cold fronts have a smaller impact
number on the south Pacific, most of them associated with
strong winds.
www.adv-geosci.net/35/157/2014/ Adv. Geosci., 35, 157–167, 2014
166 J. A. Amador and E. J. Alfaro: Weather and climate socio-economic impacts in Central America
The dynamical downscaling technique used here with
the MM5 provided high resolution (3.3 km grid size atmo-
spheric data) from meteorological information derived from
the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis originally at a courser reso-
lution of about 250 km of grid size. Results for the MM5
runs showed that the tropical depression (later tropical storm
Alma) induced an intense low-level wind that converged at
the base of the Talamanca mountain range in southern Costa
Rica, a rich archeological site, home of the stone spheres, ar-
tifacts built by the Diquis Delta culture. This intense precip-
itation was associated is associated via official and press in-
formation with landslides, floods and the consequent erosion
processes along rivers and planes in southern Costa Rica. The
observed convective activity and associated precipitation was
intense and long lasting causing serious effects on population
and infrastructure. As a consequence of this, the Pacific slope
of Costa Rica registered the main impacts, in terms of accu-
mulated precipitation, in Costa Rica during 27–29 May 2008.
The model runs did not capture well the observed precipi-
tation along the rest of the period of analysis. It is suggested
that perhaps the NCEP/NCAR data may be drier than the ac-
tual atmosphere, so the MM5 could not dynamically down-
scale the variables to obtain the registered precipitation pat-
terns. Also, for relatively weak storms, such as that of a tropi-
cal depression stage, the reanalysis data may be too course to
produce the correct forcing on the MM5 to reproduce ob-
served atmospheric quantities. In this case, it as has been
pointed out before (Amador et al., 2012), the intensity of the
storm may not be as important as the closeness of the storm
to the vulnerable area. Intense rainfall during relatively short
periods of time (6–12 h) associated with climate hazards such
as those mentioned above is an important meteorological fac-
tor that may be also associated with the stone spheres site
degradation by weathering, landslides and erosion. The lat-
ter process can cover parts of this proposed WHS with abun-
dant mud so that for this partially undisclosed archeological
site such the identification and exploration work may be even
more difficult and costly.
This work has identified very important socio-economic
effects caused by several meteorological systems hitting
Central America during the period 2002–2012. Many of
these impacts are located in areas of relevance to WHS man-
agement and protection. Mesoscale numerical modeling is
also an important tool to derive atmospheric data at a higher
resolution than that available in most types of reanalysis of
atmospheric data. The derived information can then be used
for local impact studies, especially in areas where there is a
lack of observed atmospheric data. Since this work has only
analyzed a limited amount of meteorological systems in a
relatively general way, future work on impacts of a wider
range of systems and meteorological conditions on specific
regional WHS should be considered.
Acknowledgements. The authors wish to acknowledge the support
of the following projects: IAI-CRN2-050, UCR-VI-805-B0-065,
A8-606, B0-130, A9-224, A7-002, B0-402, B3-600 and 808-
A9-180. Special thanks go to Costa Rica archeologist Ifigenia
Quintanilla for discussions and suggestions on the Diquis Delta
culture, and for kindly providing image for Fig. 2. Blanca Calderon
and Fernan Saenz kindly helped with the MM5 runs and fig-
ures. Thanks also to Ingrid Rivera, Carla Vega, Elsie Troyo,
Carlos Bojorge for data processing, and to Paula Perez for her
support with figure cartography. Anonymous reviewers made
valuable criticisms to improve the clarity, structure and content of
this work.
Edited by: K. Tokeshi
Reviewed by: D. J. Rohde and two anonymous referees
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