Introduction

The páramos (Figure 1) play an important role in regional and global cycles of water, carbon, and nutrients, which has led numerous researchers to focus their efforts on understanding their eco- hydrology and meteorology at various spatial-temporal scales. The páramos are a collection of perennially humid, neotropical alpine ecosystems identified as hot spots for climate change (Bradley et al., 2006; Castaño Uribe, 2002; Dangles et al., 2017). These ecosystems are characterized by a mountainous topography, low temperature and highly developed soils with large water-holding capacities (Buytaert et al., 2006b). Land cover in the páramos is dominated by short vegetation grasslands with scarce patches of woodlands (e.g., Polylepis sp.) and intermittent wetlands and ponds (Figure 2). Their hydrology is undergoing fast rates of environmental and human-induced changes (Buytaert et al., 2006b, 2011).These changes together with local catchment heterogeneity, large variability of hydrologic conditions and extensive data-scarcity, has historically complicated the conceptualization of high variable involved processes (Bendix, 2000; Célleri and Feyen, 2009; Correa et al., 2018; Riveros‐Iregui et al., 2018). Therefore Riveros‐Iregui et al., (2018), call for prompt hydrological assessments across Latin America. The complex topographical setting of the Andean mountains and the generally impermeable nature of the underlying geology complicate groundwater abstraction. Therefore, the tropical Andean region were high density cities are located (e.g., Bogotá, Quito, Cuenca and Lima), mostly depends on surface and shallow subsurface water sources (Buytaert et al., 2006b; Correa et al., 2017). Previous led to concern about the potential impact of changes in land use and land cover on the hydrologic response of river basins, and the consequences for water availability and quality (Ochoa-Tocachi et al., 2016a; Tovar et al., 2013b). For instance, several catchment interventions have not been suitably assessed, resulting in negative hydrologic impacts at local to regional scale (Buytaert et al., 2007a; Ochoa-Tocachi et al., 2016b), and severe ecosystem and biodiversity degradation (Hofstede et al., 2002). This, at the cost of risking nature as a subject of rights and the socio-economic and human development of a vulnerable population, critical points described in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Scientific and public awareness of these impacts started to gain momentum around the turn of the century, as a result of some seminal research papers and policy publications (e.g., Hofstede, 1995; Mena et al., 2001; Podwojewski et al., 2002). This has triggered a rapidly increasing community of research and practice around páramos hydrology, which has applied a variety of innovative techniques, intensive monitoring and model-based regionalization to improve understanding of hydrological processes and the effect of external pressures. In the newest research, field-experimental based studies started assessing previously ignored variables such as precipitation structure (Orellana-Alvear et al., 2017; Padrón et al., 2015) and clarifying less known processes such as interception (Ochoa‐Sánchez et al., 2018), evapotranspiration (Carrillo-Rojas et al., 2019; Córdova et al., 2015; Ramón-Reinozo et al., 2019), carbon and nutrient concentrations in soil and vegetation (Minaya et al., 2016c; Peña-Quemba et al., 2016; Pesántez et al., 2018; Riveros‐Iregui et al., 2018). The use of conservative and bio-reactive tracers opened a new dimension and allowed tracking fluxes, storage and mixing, and assisted in defining the spatial-temporal dynamics of runoff sources and flow pathways (Correa et al., 2017; Esquivel-Hernández et al., 2018; Minaya et al., 2016b; Mosquera et al., 2016a; Riveros‐Iregui et al., 2018). Hydrologic model applications start reproducing more accurately the observed streamflow, year-round and in extreme (droughts and floods) conditions (Avilés et al., 2015, 2016; Mora et al., 2014; Muñoz et al., 2018b). In addition, researchers even started to evaluate data uncertainties related to the location and technical properties of equipment in the increasingly denser monitoring networks (Guallpa, 2013; Muñoz et al., 2016; Sucozhañay and Célleri, 2018). Researchers have evaluated land-use change scenarios and their impact on the hydrological system to help decision-makers construct sustainable strategies and predict potential economic benefits for service providers (Bremer et al., 2019; Flores-López et al., 2016; Kroeger et al., 2019). Figure 1. Figure 2.