Roads as Drivers of Change: Trajectories across the Tri‑National Frontier in MAP, the Southwestern Amazon

Abstract

Regional studies of land cover change are often limited by available data and in terms of comparability across regions, by the transferability of methods. This research addresses the role of roads and infrastructure improvements across a tri-national frontier region with similar climatic and biophysical conditions but very different trajectories of forest clearing. The standardization of methodologies and the extensive spatial and temporal framework of the analysis are exciting as they allow us to monitor a dynamic region with global significance as it enters an era of increased road connectivity and massive potential forest loss. Our study region is the -MAP‖ frontier, which covers Madre de Dios in Peru, Acre in Brazil, and Pando in Bolivia. This tri-national frontier is being integrated into the global economy via the paving of the Inter-Oceanic Highway which links the region to ports in the Atlantic and Pacific, constituting a major infrastructure OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2011, 3 1048 change within just the last decade. Notably, there are differences in the extent of road paving among the three sides of the tri-national frontier, with paving complete in Acre, underway in Madre de Dios, and incipient in Pando. Through a multi-temporal analysis of land cover in the MAP region from 1986 to 2005, we found that rates of deforestation differ across the MAP frontier, with higher rates in Acre, followed by Madre de Dios and the lowest rates in Pando, although the dominant land cover across the region is still stable forest cover (89% overall). For all dates in the study period, deforestation rates drop with distance from major roads although the distance before this drop off appears to relate to development, with Acre influencing forests up to around 45 km out, Madre de Dios to about 18 km out and less of a discernable effect or distance value in Pando. As development occurs, the converted forest areas saturate close to roads, resulting in increasing rates of deforestation at further distances and patch consolidation of clearings over time. We can use this trend as a basis for future change predictions, with Acre providing a guide to likely future development for Madre de Dios, and in time potentially for Pando. Given the correspondence of road paving to deforestation, our findings imply that as road paving increases connectivity, flows of people and goods will accelerate across this landscape, increasing the likelihood of dramatic future changes on all sides of the tri-national frontier.

Revisiting the ‘cornerstone of Amazonian conservation’: a socioecological assessment of Brazil nut exploitation

“…For example, new economic opportunities for forest-dependent people are inducing a transition from traditional extractive activities to greater investment in cattle ranching (Salisbury and Schmink 2007;Gomes 2009;Coomes et al 2016). In addition, trans-boundary road connectivity through the southwestern Amazon, although relatively recent, is already leading to forest conversion in this key Brazil nut-producing region (Southworth et al 2011;Perz et al 2013). Moreover, market fluctuations in Brazil nut prices (which remove incentives for producers to maintain production) and policy failures (such as when governments do not defend extractivist property rights or introduce regulations that undercut harvesters; e.g., Perales and Guariguata 2015), are worrisome.…”

Stakeholder Involvement

“…Even with the urban focus, other variables are likely important. Although deemed not important at the workshop, transportation networks could still be an important driver of land cover change [51]. Groundwater restriction zones, while having real consequences in rural lands, may not be a severe impediment to growth in urban land, since they are fed by surface supplies in our study area [52].…”

A Geospatial Approach to Measuring Surface Disturbance Related to Oil and Gas Activities in West Florida, USA

“…They found that the pattern of seismic exploration did not align with the subsequent development of agricultural roads, small-holder agricultural plots and the fishbone pattern often created by colonists in tropical rainforests [18]- [20].…”