Land-Use Redistribution Compensated for Ecosystem Service Losses Derived from Agriculture Expansion, with Mixed Effects on Biodiversity in a NW Argentina Watershed

Abstract

Areas of land abandonment and agriculture expansion usually differ in location and associated environmental characteristics; thus, land-use redistribution affects the provision of ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. In a subtropical region undergoing land redistribution patterns characteristic of Latin America, we estimated 20-year changes in food production, above-ground carbon stocks and soil erosion due to land cover change, and the potential effects of such redistribution of forests on the diversity of birds and mammals. Between 1986 and 2006, despite only 0.3% of net forest cover change, 7% of the total area (ca. 280,000 has) switched between forest and non-forest covers. Food production increased by 46%, while the estimated ecosystem services changed by less than 10%. Forest carbon remained stable, with gains in montane humid forests compensating for losses in lowlands. Modeled soil erosion increased, but sediment accumulation at the watershed bottom remained stable. The responses of birds and mammals to forest redistribution differed and were stronger in birds. Due to the strong responses of birds to forest loss, lowland bird communities might be especially threatened by current land-use trends. Results suggest that land redistribution associated with the adjustment of agriculture towards soils suitable for mechanized agriculture can help mitigate associated losses in ecosystem services and biodiversity, but species and supporting services depending on easily-converted ecosystems require appropriate landscape management practices.

Landscape divergence associated with international borders and economic asymmetries

“…Economic wealth appears to favor land use patterns with better preserved mountains, resulting in overall benefits for biodiversity and watershed conservation. However, ecosystems highly transformed by intensive agriculture and urbanization are expected to threaten the biodiversity of valley bottoms, while agrodiversity and ethnobiological values may be lost as small-scale agriculture in the mountains is outcompeted by industrial agriculture in lowlands (Redo et al 2012;Nanni and Grau 2017).…”

Evaluación del déficit de bosques de ribera en Tucumán

“…Decidimos analizar zonas ribereñas ubicadas a una altitud menor a 700 m sobre el nivel del mar (m s. n. m.) porque esta área es la más modificada de la provincia (Díaz Gómez and Gaspari 2017). Nos concentramos en las llanuras hacia el este, y quedó excluido gran parte del valle de Trancas, en el norte de la provincia, que responde a otras características ambientales y dinámicas de uso de la tierra (Nanni and Grau 2017). Desde el punto de vista hidrológico, el área de estudio incluye dos cuencas principales: a) la mayor parte de la cuenca endorreica del río Salí-Dulce, en la cual el río principal de la cuenca (el río Salí), fluye a través de la provincia de noroeste a sureste y está represado por el Dique El Frontal en la frontera con la provincia de Santiago del Estero.…”

Whither the forest transition? Climate change, policy responses, and redistributed forests in the twenty-first century

“…The low cost competition from overseas farmers, the intensification of local, lowland agriculture, and growth in urban jobs with higher wages convinced many European farm workers and farmers to abandon upland agriculture and, with government support, establish forests in the uplands (Petit and Lambin 2002). 1 These dynamics caused a spatial redistribution of forests (Redo et al 2012;Jadin et al 2016;Nanni and Grau 2017). To an increasing extent, forests grew in topographically rugged terrain (Aide et al 2013;Wilson et al 2017).…”