From October 2007 to September 2008 a geothermal monitoring experiment was conducted at depths of 0.02 m, 0.5 m and 1.0 m to quantify the variations of temperature, thermal conductivity and the shallow geothermal heat flow at places with and without vegetation cover in the Humaitá city, Amazonas. The influence of the vegetation cover on the shallow geothermal system was observed in the sites studied. There were variations of monthly average values of temperature between the places with and without vegetation cover. During the "dry" period, this variation was up to 6.01ºC at the depth of 0.02 m, and 2.84ºC at the depth of 1.0 m. During the "rainy" period, however, the variation was up to 2.94ºC, at the depth of 0.02 m, and 2.51ºC at the depth of 1.0 m. The difference of the daily extreme values of temperature between sites with and without vegetation cover were 3.97ºC during the "rainy" period and 9.63ºC during the "dry" period, at the depth of 0.02 m. It was noticed that at 06:00 PM the magnitude of the temperature remained high compared to other times on the day studied. The values of the thermal conductivity were 0.54 W/mºC during the "dry" period, and 1.23 W/mºC during the "rainy" period. The values of the shallow geothermal flows at depths of 0.5 m and 1.0 m, were 2.51 W/m² and 0.64 W/m², respectively. These values are 10³ larger than the terrestrial heat flow in the region. The thermal variations at0.5 m to 1.0 m depth are influenced by external sources that reach the surface and cannot be neglected. The thermal variations recorded in this work are important and fundamental to better understanding the shallow geothermal structure in the southern, part of Amazonas state, and they also contribute as input to models that allow the mitigation or elimination of the effects caused by anthropogenic actions.
shallow geothermic; temperature; vegetation cover effect; thermal conductivity; shallow geothermal flow
