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Woody Plant-Cover Dynamics in Argentine Savannas from the 1880s to 2000s: The Interplay of Encroachment and Agriculture Conversion at Varying Scales

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Abstract

Woody plant-cover dynamics can alter the provisioning of ecosystem services that humans rely on. However, our understanding of such dynamics today is often limited by the availability of reliable and detailed land-cover information in the past, before the onset of remote sensing technologies. In this study, we carefully extracted information from historical maps of the Caldenal savannas of central Argentina in the 1880s to generate a woody cover map that we compared to a 2000s dataset. Over about the last 120 years, woody cover increased across approximately 12,200 km2 (14.2% of the area). During the same period, about 5,000 km2 of the original woody area was converted to croplands and around 7,000 km2 to pastures, about the same total land area as was affected by encroachment. A smaller area, fine-scale analysis between the 1960s and the 2000s revealed that tree cover increased overall by 27%, shifting from open savannas to a mosaic of dense woodlands along with additional agricultural clearings. Statistical models indicate that woody cover dynamics in this region were affected by a combination of environmental and human factors. Over about the last 120 years, increases in woody plant cover have stored significant amounts of C (95.9 TgC), but not enough to compensate for losses from conversions to croplands and pastures (166.7 TgC), generating a regional net loss of 70.9 TgC. C losses could be even larger in the future if, as predicted, energy crops such as switchgrass, would trigger a new land-cover change phase in this region.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank R. Gardón, F. González Mazzoni, V. Sirotiuk, and J. Uribe Echevarría for digitizing the 1880s data set. M. Cock, M. Betelu, and M. G. Castro assisted during data collection. The manuscript was greatly improved by the careful evaluation by two anonymous reviewers. The Dirección General de Catastro and Dirección de Recursos Naturales de la Provincia de La Pampa provided access to the maps and aerial photos. INPE provided CBERS images. Funding was provided by NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NNX10AO68H), NSF DDRI Grant (1130996), Duke CLACS Tinker Field Research Grant, Duke CLACS Mellon Graduate Student Research Travel Grant, and a research grant from the Ministerio de la Producción del Gobierno de la Provincia de La Pampa (Argentina) through the Ley Nacional 26.331 de Presupuestos mínimos de conservación de los bosques nativos.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Box 90328, Durham, North Carolina, 27708, USA

      Mariano González-Roglich, Jennifer J. Swenson & Robert B. Jackson

    2. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, Uruguay 151, 6300, Santa Rosa, La Pampa, Argentina

      Diego Villarreal

    3. Grupo de Estudios Ambientales, CONICET & Universidad de San Luis, Avda. Italia 1556, 5700, San Luis, San Luis, Argentina

      Esteban G. Jobbágy

    4. School of Earth Sciences, Stanford University, 397 Panama Mall, Mitchell Building 101, Stanford, California, 94305, USA

      Robert B. Jackson

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    1. Mariano González-Roglich
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    3. Diego Villarreal
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    Correspondence to Mariano González-Roglich.

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    Author contributions: M. González-Roglich conceived and designed the study, performed research, analyzed data and wrote the paper. J.J. Swenson, D. Villarreal, E.G. Jobbágy, and R.B. Jackson contributed new methods and contributed to writing.

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    González-Roglich, M., Swenson, J.J., Villarreal, D. et al. Woody Plant-Cover Dynamics in Argentine Savannas from the 1880s to 2000s: The Interplay of Encroachment and Agriculture Conversion at Varying Scales. Ecosystems 18, 481–492 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-015-9841-5

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