INVESTIGADORES
IRIBARNE Oscar Osvaldo
artículos
Título:
Wetland changes within an agricultural basin of the Argentinean Pampas. Disentangling human and climatic causes
Autor/es:
171. BOOMAN, G; M. CALANDRONI; P. LATERRA; F. CABRIA; O. IRIBARNE,; P. VÁZQUEZ
Revista:
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
Editorial:
SPRINGER
Referencias:
Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2012 vol. 50 p. 1058 - 1067
ISSN:
0364-152X
Resumen:
Wetland loss is a frequent concern for the environmental
management of rural landscapes, but poor disentanglement
between climatic and land management causes
frequently constrains both proper diagnoses and planning.
The aim of this study is to address areal changes induced by
non-climatic factors on lentic water bodies (LWB) within an
agricultural basin of the Argentinean Pampas, and the human
activities that might be involved. The LWB of the Mar
Chiquita basin (Buenos Aires province, Argentina) were
mapped using Landsat images from 1998?2008 and then
corrected for precipitation variability by considering the
regional hydrological status on each date. LWB areal changes
were statistically and spatially analyzed in relation to
land use changes, channelization of streams, and drainage of
small SWB in the catchment areas. We found that 12 % of
the total LWB in the basin had changed (P\0.05) due to
non-climatic causes. During the evaluated decade, 30 % of
the LWB that changed size had decreased while 70 %
showed steady increases in area. The number of alteredLWB
within watersheds lineally increased or decreased according
to the proportion of grasslands replaced by sown pastures, or
the proportion of sown pastures replaced by crop fields,
respectively. Drainage and channelization do not appear to
be related to the alteration of LWB; however some of these
hydrologic modifications may predate 1998, and thus earlier
effects cannot be discarded. This study shows that largescale
changes in land cover (e.g., grasslands reduction) can
cause a noticeable loss of hydrologic regulation at the
catchment scale within a decade.