TY - JOUR
T1 - Rapid expansion of human impact on natural land in South America since 1985
AU - Zalles, Viviana
AU - Hansen, Matthew C.
AU - Potapov, Peter V.
AU - Parker, Diana
AU - Stehman, Stephen V.
AU - Pickens, Amy H.
AU - Parente, Leandro Leal
AU - Ferreira, Laerte G.
AU - Song, Xiao Peng
AU - Hernandez-Serna, Andres
AU - Kommareddy, Indrani
N1 - Funding Information:
Support for this research was provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grant number 7864). Author contributions: V.Z. and M.C.H. designed the study. V.Z., M.C.H., P.V.P., D.P., S.V.S., L.L.P., L.G.F., A.H.P., X.-P.S., and A.H.-S. analyzed data. I.K. provided technical support. V.Z. and M.C.H. wrote the manuscript, and all authors provided editorial input. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data from the study, including maps, sample reference data, and tabular results, may be found at https://glad.umd.edu/dataset/ rapid-expansion-human-impact-natural-land-south-america-1985. All area estimates and associated SEs reported here can also be accessed through the Excel file submitted as Supplementary Data. All other data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. Additional data related to this paper may be requested from the authors.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved.
PY - 2021/3
Y1 - 2021/3
N2 - Across South America, the expansion of commodity land uses has underpinned substantial economic development at the expense of natural land cover and associated ecosystem services. Here, we show that such human impact on the continent’s land surface, specifically land use conversion and natural land cover modification, expanded by 268 million hectares (Mha), or 60%, from 1985 to 2018. By 2018, 713 Mha, or 40%, of the South American landmass was impacted by human activity. Since 1985, the area of natural tree cover decreased by 16%, and pasture, cropland, and plantation land uses increased by 23, 160, and 288%, respectively. A substantial area of disturbed natural land cover, totaling 55 Mha, had no discernable land use, representing land that is degraded in terms of ecosystem function but not economically productive. These results illustrate the extent of ongoing human appropriation of natural ecosystems in South America, which intensifies threats to ecosystem-scale functions.
AB - Across South America, the expansion of commodity land uses has underpinned substantial economic development at the expense of natural land cover and associated ecosystem services. Here, we show that such human impact on the continent’s land surface, specifically land use conversion and natural land cover modification, expanded by 268 million hectares (Mha), or 60%, from 1985 to 2018. By 2018, 713 Mha, or 40%, of the South American landmass was impacted by human activity. Since 1985, the area of natural tree cover decreased by 16%, and pasture, cropland, and plantation land uses increased by 23, 160, and 288%, respectively. A substantial area of disturbed natural land cover, totaling 55 Mha, had no discernable land use, representing land that is degraded in terms of ecosystem function but not economically productive. These results illustrate the extent of ongoing human appropriation of natural ecosystems in South America, which intensifies threats to ecosystem-scale functions.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103777239&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.abg1620
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.abg1620
M3 - Article
C2 - 33811082
AN - SCOPUS:85103777239
VL - 7
JO - Science Advances
JF - Science Advances
SN - 2375-2548
IS - 14
M1 - eabg1620
ER -