Large-scale Degradation of the Tocantins-Araguaia River Basin

Abstract

The Tocantins-Araguaia Basin is one of the largest river systems in South America, located entirely within Brazilian territory. In the last decades, capital-concentrating activities such as agribusiness, mining, and hydropower promoted extensive changes in land cover, hydrology, and environmental conditions. These changes are jeopardizing the basin's biodiversity and ecosystem services. Threats are escalating as poor environmental policies continue to be formulated, such as environmentally unsustainable hydropower plants, large-scale agriculture for commodity production, and aquaculture with non-native fish. If the current model persists, it will deepen the environmental crisis in the basin, compromising broad conservation goals and social development in the long term. Better policies will require thought and planning to minimize growing threats and ensure the basin's sustainability for future generations.

Human pressure drives biodiversity–multifunctionality relationships in large Neotropical wetlands

“…1). For example, the study wetlands cover simultaneously crops of soy and sugarcane, pasturelands grazed by cattle, and high human population density [13][14][15] .…”

The relationship between zooplankton occupancy and abundance in a floodplain is mediated by the hydrological regime

“…In conclusion, our study suggests that system characteristics, in terms of facilitating the dispersal among habitats, in addition to species-specific characteristics (as demonstrated in other studies; e.g., Foggo et al, 2007), are key to explaining the distribution of species in floodplains. Considering the increasing human interference in these ecosystems (Pelicice et al, 2021), we also speculate that changes in the hydrological regime (e.g., caused by dams or climate change) may reduce the connectivity of the system and, therefore, the ability of planktonic species to occupy the floodplain environments.…”

Utilização De Geotecnologia Para Mapear a Pegada Hídrica Total No Estado Da Paraíba

“…Ademais, as áreas de agricultura também se expandiram nas últimas décadas na região, principalmente com as monoculturas de soja, cana-de-açúcar, milho e sorgo (BAYER et al, 2020;LOPES et al, 2020). Nossos resultados só reforçam os de estudos realizados no Cerrado brasileiro nas últimas décadas, os quais apontam uma intensa expansão agrícola e o consequente aumento do desmatamento da vegetação nativa desse bioma (COE et al, 2011;GARCIA et al, 2017;PELICICE et al, 2021;SANO et al, 2010).…”

“…Nesse contexto, a bacia do rio Araguaia, localizada na região de transição entre os biomas Amazônia e Cerrado, no Brasil, vem sofrendo com as mudanças em larga escala na cobertura da terra, que começou no final dos anos 1960 com a conversão do Cerrado em pastagem nativa, removendo grande parte da vegetação, cenário que foi se intensificando nas últimas décadas com incremento de pastagem cultivada e agricultura mecanizada, principalmente soja (SANO et al, 2008;COE et al, 2011;PELICICE et al, 2021). Tal realidade pode modificar o fluxo e qualidade hídrica, interferindo na biota da região, uma vez que o desmatamento tem impacto direto na hidrologia, na bioquímica dos rios e na geomorfologia, principalmente na carga de sedimentos (LATRUBESSE et al, 2009).…”