Agricultural potential as an indicator for 21st century land use change across South America?s ecoregions

LUCÍA ZARBÁ; H. RICARDO GRAU; N. IGNACIO GASPARRI; JORDAN GRAESSER

Posadas

Congreso; IUFRO; 2018

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF FOREST RESEARCH ORGANIZATIONS

Cropland and pastureland are expanding throughout Latin America, often replacing forestecosystems. Commodity production for export is proposed as one of the main drivers of thisexpansion, and indirectly these changes induce other land use changes (e.g. low profit agricultureabandonment, rural-urban migration). Previous studies found a segregated pattern of expansionand reorganization of the different land uses across the continent, suggesting that geography playsan important role in these dynamics. Foresee which ecoregions move in each direction isimportant for contextualizing policy and planning efforts to maximize land use efficiency. In thisstudy, we created a map that tried to capture the agribusiness investor viewpoint as a major agentof change. Specifically, we were interested in which ecoregions are more likely to undergo similartransformation dynamics and what type of agricultural activities may occur in the differentecosystems? To address these questions we proposed a typification of agricultural potential as anindicator of the overall land use change processes expected in each ecoregion based on threeattributes: (i) aptitude for mechanized agriculture, (ii) aptitude for rain-fed agriculture, and (iii)distance to consumption/distribution centers. In addition, alternative thresholds with increasinglevel of tolerance were explored. We grouped the ecoregions through cluster analysis, repeatingthe analysis for all combination of thresholds (n=48). Finally, we analyzed the sensitivity to eachattribute and the correlation between the clusters and cropland cover area and its change between2000-2014. Results as of now showed that maps with more flexible thresholds correlated betterwith patterns of cropland area. Correlation with cropland area showed big sensitivity toaccessibility. In general, patterns cluster analyses found 4 big groups: mountain, well connectedintermediate humidity and relief, flat dry isolated, and flat wet well connected ecoregions.Ecosystems in the latter are the most vulnerable to future agriculture expansion