The ecohydrological imprint of deforestation in the semiarid Chaco: Insights from the last forest remnants of a highly cultivated landscape

GIMENEZ R; MERCAU JL; PAEZ RA; JOBBAGY EG

HYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES

JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD

Lugar: LOndres; Año: 2016

0885-6087

he semiarid Chaco plains present one of the highest rates of forest clearing and agricultural expansion of the world. In other semiarid plains such massive vegetation replacements initiated a groundwater recharge and salt mobilization process that, after decades, raised regional water tables and salts to the surface degrading agricultural and natural ecosystems. Indirect evidence suggests that this process (known as dryland salinity) is begining in the Chaco plains. Multiple approaches (deep soil profiles, geoelectric surveys and monitoring of groundwater salinity, level and isotopic composition) were combined to assess the dryland salinity status in one of the oldest and most active agricultural hotspots of the region, where isolated forest remnants occupy an extremely flat cultivated matrix. Full vadose moisture and chloride profiles from paired agriculture-forest stands (17 profiles, six sites) revealed: a generalized onset of deep drainage with cultivation (32 to >87 mm y-1)