Unveiling the increasingly altered patterns of wetland ecosystem functional diversity in the Lower Delta of the Paraná River

AQUINO, DIEGO SEBASTIÁN; GAVIER, GREGORIO; QUINTANA, RUBÉN D.

LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT

JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD

Lugar: LOndres; Año: 2022 vol. 6 p. 1 - 15

1085-3278

Since climate, environmental and anthropic controls affect ecosystem functioningsimultaneously, wetlands are permanently changing at different spatio–temporal scales.Thus, regionalizations based not only on structural, but also on functional features ofecosystems constitute a much-needed baseline towards proper decision-making andenvironmental management in the context of land degradation and water managementinfrastructure. Our aim was to identify and characterize the spatio-temporal patterns ofecosystem functional diversity in a highly diverse and altered mosaic of wetland ecosystemsand assess its environmental and anthropic controls. The characterization was based onsatellite-derived Functional Units (FUs), involving seven rasterized traits derived fromcomplementary time series decomposition techniques applied to a 15-year NDVI product(2001 - 2015). The study area exhibited a vast functional heterogeneity, strongly related todiffering anthropic and hydro-geomorphological features. Vegetation dynamics wereincreasingly restricted by the precipitation regime in areas naturally or anthropicallydecoupled from the flood pulse, which also exhibited the lowest ecosystem functionalrichness. Depicted as morpho-dynamically stable, areas still subject to recurring overflowevents and higher water permanence exhibited sustained NDVI values during the growingseason. Our study addresses a proper case of globally widespread land degradationprocesses occurring across several wetland ecosystems on Earth. Particularly, developmentof unrestricted water management infrastructure and decouplement from the hydrologicregime suggests an on-going loss of ecosystem functional diversity and constrained carbongain dynamics. In this context, the spatio-temporal accuracy of our study constitutes areliable and replicable foundation, suitable for improvement of environmental management inwetland ecosystems.