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Inexorable land degradation due to agriculture expansion in South American Pampa

Nature Sustainability volume 6, pages 662–670 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

From 1985 onwards, South America has undergone a major expansion in agriculture at the expense of native vegetation (for example, native Pampa grassland). As an emblematic crop, the surface area cultivated with soybeans has increased by 1,000% between 1990 and 2020 in Uruguay. The environmental consequences of this massive land-use conversion on soil degradation remain poorly documented, although agriculture expansion is projected to continue to increase in the coming years in South America. In this study, sediment cores were collected in reservoirs located downstream of two contrasted agricultural catchments draining the Rio Negro River (Uruguay) to reconstruct the sediment dynamics and the sources of erosion associated with this expansion. Results demonstrated the occurrence of two periods of acceleration of sediment delivery since the 1980s. The first period of acceleration was recorded in the mid-1990s and was related to afforestation programs. The second and larger acceleration phase was recorded after 2000 during the soybean crop expansion. This period was marked by a greater supply of sediment from the native grassland source, highlighting the impact of agriculture expansion at the expense of native vegetation. Conservation measures should therefore be urgently taken to preserve biodiversity and soil functions in this region.

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Fig. 1: Location of the study sites within the Rio Negro Basin, Uruguay.
Fig. 2: Evolution of the main land uses between 2000 and 2015.
Fig. 3: Age-depth models of the Rincón del Bonete and Palmar sediment cores.
Fig. 4: Evolution of the MAR, the terrigenous fraction proxy (Fe) and the contribution of the natural grassland source to sediment accumulated in the Rincon del Bonete and Palmar reservoirs.

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Data availability

Data are available in the Zenodo repository at https://zenodo.org/record/6630369 and https://zenodo.org/record/6630479.

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Acknowledgements

Collaboration between France and Uruguay was supported by an applied research project from the Fondo Maria Viñas (FMV_1_2019_1_156244 to M.T., G.C., M.C., J.G., P.C. and O.E.) funded by the National Agency of Research and Innovation (ANII, Uruguay). This work gave inspiration to the AVATAR project (ANR-22-CE93-0001).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE-IPSL), UMR 8212 (CEA/CNRS/UVSQ), Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France

    Anthony Foucher, Pierre-Alexis Chaboche & Olivier Evrard

  2. Laboratorio de Radioquímica, Área de Radiofarmacia, Centro de Investigaciones Nucleares, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Marcos Tassano, Mirel Cabrera, Joan Gonzalez & Pablo Cabral

  3. Sección Limnología, Facultad de Ciencias, Instituto de Ecología y Ciencias Ambientales, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Guillermo Chalar

  4. Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, List, Palaiseau, France

    Anne-Catherine Simon & Mathieu Agelou

  5. BASF SA, Environmental Fate - Regulatory Science Crop Protection, São Paulo, Brazil

    Rafael Ramon

  6. Department of Soil Science, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

    Tales Tiecher

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Contributions

M.T., G.C., M.C., J.G. and P.C. collected the sediment cores. A.-C.S. and M.A. carried out CT-scan measurements. A.F. performed gamma and organic matter analyses as well as the XRF core scanner measurements. R.R. and T.T. developed the sediment tracing approach. A.F., P.-A. C. and O.E. drafted the manuscript. All authors participated in the editing and review of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Anthony Foucher.

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Nature Sustainability thanks Pascal Podwojewski, Sebastian Villarino and Telmo Amado for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Foucher, A., Tassano, M., Chaboche, PA. et al. Inexorable land degradation due to agriculture expansion in South American Pampa. Nat Sustain 6, 662–670 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01074-z

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