Potential groundwater contribution to Amazon evapotranspiration

Climate and land ecosystem models simulate a dry-season vegetation stress in the Amazon forest, but observations do not support these results, indicating adequate water supply. Proposed mechanisms include larger soil water store and deeper roots in nature and the ability of roots to move water up and down (hydraulic redistribution), both absent in the models. Here we provide a first-order assessment of the potential importance of the upward soil water flux from the groundwater driven by capillarity. We present a map of equilibrium water table depth from available observations and a groundwater model simulation constrained by these observations. We then present a map of maximum capillary flux these water table depths, combined with the fine-textured soils in the Amazon, can potentially support. The maps show that the water table beneath the Amazon can be shallow in lowlands and river valleys (