Effects of Climate and Land-Cover Changes on Soil Erosion in Brazilian Pantanal
1
Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul 79070-900, Brazil
2
Master’s Water Resources and Environmental Sanitation, Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande, MS 79070-900, Brazil
3
Center for Remote Sensing, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais 31270-901, Brazil
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2019, 11(24), 7053; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11247053
Received: 1 November 2019 / Revised: 2 December 2019 / Accepted: 6 December 2019 / Published: 10 December 2019
(This article belongs to the Section Environmental Sustainability and Applications)
The Pantanal biome integrates the lowlands of the Upper Paraguay Basin (UPB), which is hydrologically connected to the biomes of the Cerrado and Amazon (the highlands of the UPB). The effects of recent land-cover and land-use (LCLU) changes in the highlands, combined with climate change, are still poorly understood in this region. Here, we investigate the effects of soil erosion in the Brazilian Pantanal under climate and LCLU changes by combining different scenarios of projected rainfall erosivity and land-cover management. We compute the average annual soil erosion for the baseline (2012) and projected scenarios for 2020, 2035, and 2050. For the worst scenario, we noted an increase in soil loss of up to 100% from 2012 to 2050, associated with cropland expansion in some parts of the highlands. Furthermore, for the same period, our results indicated an increase of 20 to 40% in soil loss in parts of the Pantanal biome, which was associated with farmland increase (mainly for livestock) in the lowlands. Therefore, to ensure water, food, energy, and ecosystem service security over the next decades in the whole UPB, robust and comprehensive planning measures need to be developed, especially for the most impacted areas found in our study.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Colman, C.B.; Oliveira, P.T.S.; Almagro, A.; Soares-Filho, B.S.; Rodrigues, D.B.B. Effects of Climate and Land-Cover Changes on Soil Erosion in Brazilian Pantanal. Sustainability 2019, 11, 7053. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11247053
AMA Style
Colman CB, Oliveira PTS, Almagro A, Soares-Filho BS, Rodrigues DBB. Effects of Climate and Land-Cover Changes on Soil Erosion in Brazilian Pantanal. Sustainability. 2019; 11(24):7053. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11247053
Chicago/Turabian StyleColman, Carina B., Paulo T.S. Oliveira, André Almagro, Britaldo S. Soares-Filho, and Dulce B.B. Rodrigues 2019. "Effects of Climate and Land-Cover Changes on Soil Erosion in Brazilian Pantanal" Sustainability 11, no. 24: 7053. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11247053
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