Cover Image
QR Code

Co-designed farming scenarios show that vegetation is more effective than drainage regulating water excess in the inner Argentinean Pampas

Study region: La Picasa endorheic basin (6 820 km²), Inner Argentine Pampas, one of South America’s most productive rain-fed plains. Study focus: We evaluated how land-use change, rainfall variability and drainage infrastructure control shallow-groundwater behaviour in ultra-flat landscapes. The So...

Full description

Main Authors: López, Sebastián, Videla Mensegue, Horacio Rogelio, Guillen, Nicolás Federico, Alvarez, Javier, Corigliano, José, Macchiavello, Alejandra, Romero Verastegui, Betsy, Kroon, Timo, Veldhuizen, Albert A., Salafia, Analía Grisel, Blanco, Paola, Canale, Alejandra, Garcia, Carlos Marcelo, Jobbagy Gampel, Esteban Gabriel
Format: info:ar-repo/semantics/artículo
Language:Inglés
Published: Elsevier 2025
Subjects:
Vegetación
Drenaje
Agua Subterránea
Cambio de Uso de la Tierra
Sostenibilidad
Ordenación de Aguas
Vegetation
Drainage
Groundwater
Land-use Change
Sustainability
Water Management
Región Pampeana, Argentina
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12123/24075
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214581825006408
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2025.102811
Summary:Study region: La Picasa endorheic basin (6 820 km²), Inner Argentine Pampas, one of South America’s most productive rain-fed plains. Study focus: We evaluated how land-use change, rainfall variability and drainage infrastructure control shallow-groundwater behaviour in ultra-flat landscapes. The Soil Water Balance (SWB) crop model was linked to the iMOD groundwater model through a one-way coupling to simulate daily water-table dynamics (2009–2019) under four stakeholder-defined scenarios: current practice (E0), agricultural intensification (E1), pasture intensification with + 20 % perennial cover (E2) and a six-fold drainage-network expansion (E3). New hydrological insights for the region Pasture intensification deepened the median water table by ∼0.9 m and halved the area with depths < 1 m, outperforming intensified cropping (–0.3 m) and extensive drainage (negligible basin-wide effect). Drainage channels acted only as local, short-term buffers during extreme floods. Inter-annual rainfall variability remained the dominant driver of groundwater fluctuations, yet adaptive land-use mixes can increase storage ahead of wet periods. Results indicate that nature-based vegetation strategies are more effective and sustainable than additional “grey” infrastructure for regulating water excess in the Inner Pampas and similar dry-plain agro-ecosystems.

Similar Items