Roads and land tenure mediate the effects of precipitation on forest cover change in the Argentine Dry Chaco
Dry forests are among the most threatened ecosystems globally, due to agricultural expansion driven by the increasing demand for food, fibers, and energy in developed and emerging countries. Among these, the forests of the South American Gran Chaco are one of the global deforestation hotspots. The A...
| Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Elsevier
2021
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| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12123/10854 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837721005299 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105806 |
| _version_ | 1855484669316825088 |
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| author | Aguiar, Sebastián Mastrangelo, Matías Enrique Texeira González, Marcos Alexis Meyfroidt, Patrick Volante, Jose Norberto Paruelo, José María |
| author_browse | Aguiar, Sebastián Mastrangelo, Matías Enrique Meyfroidt, Patrick Paruelo, José María Texeira González, Marcos Alexis Volante, Jose Norberto |
| author_facet | Aguiar, Sebastián Mastrangelo, Matías Enrique Texeira González, Marcos Alexis Meyfroidt, Patrick Volante, Jose Norberto Paruelo, José María |
| author_sort | Aguiar, Sebastián |
| collection | INTA Digital |
| description | Dry forests are among the most threatened ecosystems globally, due to agricultural expansion driven by the increasing demand for food, fibers, and energy in developed and emerging countries. Among these, the forests of the South American Gran Chaco are one of the global deforestation hotspots. The Argentine Dry Chaco has been the focus of several studies that assess the factors that drive forest conversion. However, these studies do not describe the causal relationships among these drivers and seldom use existing theory to select drivers. Here we employ a theory-driven approach to test the relative merits of alternative and complementary hypotheses to explain the drivers and mechanisms explaining the unequal spatial distribution of forest loss and maintenance in the Argentine Dry Chaco from 2000 to 2010. Using structural equation modeling, we quantified the direct and indirect effects of multiple drivers and compared the explanatory power and parsimony of these alternative hypotheses, i.e. the biophysical, infrastructure, socio-demographic, institutional, and the integration of them. For both forest loss and maintenance, the model containing infrastructural drivers had the best balance between parsimony and explanatory power. Integrated models, comprising a combination of drivers, had the highest explanatory power (R2 = 0.81 for forest maintenance, and R2 = 0.58 for forest loss). We show that biophysical constraints operate directly and indirectly: soil suitability had direct effects on forest cover maintenance, while precipitation affected it both directly and indirectly through influencing the institutional (land tenure) and infrastructure (road density). Indigenous communities positively affected forest maintenance both directly and indirectly mediated by non-private land tenure. Our results suggest that disentangling the structure of the relationships among drivers could increase our capacity for understanding and steering land-use change. Furthermore, policies for halting deforestation might increase their effectiveness by accounting for the mechanisms that underlie forest loss and maintenance. |
| format | Artículo |
| id | INTA10854 |
| institution | Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA -Argentina) |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publishDateRange | 2021 |
| publishDateSort | 2021 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| publisherStr | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | INTA108542021-12-06T13:29:14Z Roads and land tenure mediate the effects of precipitation on forest cover change in the Argentine Dry Chaco Aguiar, Sebastián Mastrangelo, Matías Enrique Texeira González, Marcos Alexis Meyfroidt, Patrick Volante, Jose Norberto Paruelo, José María Bosques Deforestación Cambio de Uso de la Tierra Alteración de la Cubierta Vegetal Precipitación Atmosférica Argentina Tenencia de la Tierra Forests Deforestation Land Use Change Land Cover Change Precipitation Land Tenure Región Chaco Semiárido Dry forests are among the most threatened ecosystems globally, due to agricultural expansion driven by the increasing demand for food, fibers, and energy in developed and emerging countries. Among these, the forests of the South American Gran Chaco are one of the global deforestation hotspots. The Argentine Dry Chaco has been the focus of several studies that assess the factors that drive forest conversion. However, these studies do not describe the causal relationships among these drivers and seldom use existing theory to select drivers. Here we employ a theory-driven approach to test the relative merits of alternative and complementary hypotheses to explain the drivers and mechanisms explaining the unequal spatial distribution of forest loss and maintenance in the Argentine Dry Chaco from 2000 to 2010. Using structural equation modeling, we quantified the direct and indirect effects of multiple drivers and compared the explanatory power and parsimony of these alternative hypotheses, i.e. the biophysical, infrastructure, socio-demographic, institutional, and the integration of them. For both forest loss and maintenance, the model containing infrastructural drivers had the best balance between parsimony and explanatory power. Integrated models, comprising a combination of drivers, had the highest explanatory power (R2 = 0.81 for forest maintenance, and R2 = 0.58 for forest loss). We show that biophysical constraints operate directly and indirectly: soil suitability had direct effects on forest cover maintenance, while precipitation affected it both directly and indirectly through influencing the institutional (land tenure) and infrastructure (road density). Indigenous communities positively affected forest maintenance both directly and indirectly mediated by non-private land tenure. Our results suggest that disentangling the structure of the relationships among drivers could increase our capacity for understanding and steering land-use change. Furthermore, policies for halting deforestation might increase their effectiveness by accounting for the mechanisms that underlie forest loss and maintenance. EEA Salta Fil: Aguiar, Sebastián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; Argentina Fil: Aguiar, Sebastián. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; Argentina Fil: Aguiar, Sebastián. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Cátedra de Dasonomía; Argentina. Fil: Mastrangelo, Matias Enrique. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. Grupo de Estudio de Agroecosistemas y Paisajes Rurales; Argentina. Fil: Texeira González, Marcos Alexis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura. Fil: Texeira González, Marcos Alexis. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; Argentina. Fil: Texeira González, Marcos Alexis. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos y Sistemas de Información; Argentina Fil: Meyfroidt, Patrick. Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique; Bélgica Fil: Meyfroidt, Patrick. Université Catholique de Louvain. Earth and Life Institute. Georges Lemaître Centre for Earth and Climate Research; Bélgica Fil: Volante, Jose Norberto. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Salta; Argentina Fil: Paruelo, José María. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; Argentina Fil: Paruelo, José María. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura; Argentina. Fil: Paruelo, José María. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos y Sistemas de Información; Argentina. Fil: Paruelo, José María. Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agropecuarias. INIA La Estanzuela; Uruguay 2021-12-06T13:14:39Z 2021-12-06T13:14:39Z 2022-01 info:ar-repo/semantics/artículo info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12123/10854 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837721005299 0264-8377 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105806 eng info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess application/pdf Argentina .......... (nation) (World, South America) 7006477 Elsevier Land Use Policy 112 : 105806 (January 2022) |
| spellingShingle | Bosques Deforestación Cambio de Uso de la Tierra Alteración de la Cubierta Vegetal Precipitación Atmosférica Argentina Tenencia de la Tierra Forests Deforestation Land Use Change Land Cover Change Precipitation Land Tenure Región Chaco Semiárido Aguiar, Sebastián Mastrangelo, Matías Enrique Texeira González, Marcos Alexis Meyfroidt, Patrick Volante, Jose Norberto Paruelo, José María Roads and land tenure mediate the effects of precipitation on forest cover change in the Argentine Dry Chaco |
| title | Roads and land tenure mediate the effects of precipitation on forest cover change in the Argentine Dry Chaco |
| title_full | Roads and land tenure mediate the effects of precipitation on forest cover change in the Argentine Dry Chaco |
| title_fullStr | Roads and land tenure mediate the effects of precipitation on forest cover change in the Argentine Dry Chaco |
| title_full_unstemmed | Roads and land tenure mediate the effects of precipitation on forest cover change in the Argentine Dry Chaco |
| title_short | Roads and land tenure mediate the effects of precipitation on forest cover change in the Argentine Dry Chaco |
| title_sort | roads and land tenure mediate the effects of precipitation on forest cover change in the argentine dry chaco |
| topic | Bosques Deforestación Cambio de Uso de la Tierra Alteración de la Cubierta Vegetal Precipitación Atmosférica Argentina Tenencia de la Tierra Forests Deforestation Land Use Change Land Cover Change Precipitation Land Tenure Región Chaco Semiárido |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12123/10854 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837721005299 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105806 |
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