Widespread and major losses in multiple ecosystem services as a result of agricultural expansion in the Argentine Chaco

 

Where agriculture expands into tropical and subtropical forests, social-ecological impacts are typically strong. However, where and how frontier development impacts on ecosystem functioning and services is often unclear, including which services trade off against agricultural production. This constitutes a major barrier towards planning for more sustainable outcomes in deforestation frontiers.

Here, we assessed spatiotemporal change in multiple ecosystem services in the Argentine Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot. We modelled and mapped five ecosystem functions (i.e., carbon storage in biomass, carbon storage in soil, erosion control, excess rainfall retention by vegetation, and soil fertility) which together provide three ecosystem services (i.e., agricultural suitability, climate regulation, and flood regulation) for 1985, 2000, and 2013. We then employed this information to identify and map: (i) main trade-offs between ecosystem services and agricultural production, and (...