Beyond Carbon: The Contributions of South American Tropical Humid and Subhumid Forests to Ecosystem Services

Abstract

Tropical forests are key habitats for diverse organisms, and because of their wide global distribution, rich biodiversity, and long history of human use, they are also essential for providing a wide range of ecosystem services (ESs;Brandon, 2015; Brockerhoff et al., 2017;Gibson et al., 2011;Mori et al., 2017). Considerable attention has been devoted to tropical forests and their role as a natural climate solution for mitigating climate change. It is estimated that about 30% of all CO 2 emitted by human activities is removed from the atmosphere by these forests (Le Quéré et al., 2018). The important role of tropical forests as a carbon sink and stock has historically guided conservation pacts, programs, and policies for establishing targets associated with carbon storage and climate change mitigation. This role was important in developing several articles of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol (Swingland et al., 2002) and explicit policies for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation through the REDD+ agreement (Pistorius, 2012). Several countries also set ambitious goals for restoring forests to reduce emissions or sequester carbon in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2015 Paris Agreement. The land use, land cover change, and forestry (LULCCF) sector is included in many countries' first nationally determined contributions (NDCs) but with differing levels of specificity. Assuming full implementation of NDCs, Grassi et al. (2017) show that land use-and forests, in particular-emerges as a key component of the Paris Agreement: global land use will turn from a net anthropogenic source during 1990-2010 (1.3 ± 1.1 Gt CO 2 e yr −1 ) to a net sink of carbon by 2030 (up to −1.1 ± 0.5 Gt CO 2 e yr −1 ) and would provide a quarter of countries' planned emission reductions. Two tropical countries stand out regarding the magnitude of the LULCCF contribution: Brazil set ambitious goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030 with

Past and Future Responses of Soil Water to Climate Change in Tropical and Subtropical Rainforest Systems in South America

“…Large trees transport water confined in underground aquifers through their roots toward the atmosphere through transpiration. Owing to the vast number of trees that the Amazon is home to, a large volume of moisture is turned into rainfall in the region; it is transpired back to the atmosphere by the trees, enabling the recirculation of moisture, which is displaced by the action of wind in the westerly direction, until it collides with the Andes, and by the effect of the mountain range toward the south, it supplies precipitation to the other regions along the way [42][43][44]. In an ecosystem where more than one-third of the moisture that forms precipitation originates from the evapotranspiration of forest trees, large losses from deforestation lead to significant reductions in the moisture content of air [44].…”

“…According to a previous study [40], in the southern Brazilian Amazon, when deforestation exceeds a certain limit, a vertiginous reduction in precipitation is observed, granting projections for 2050 of a greater weight to deforestation than to the natural variation in rainfall. The protection of tropical forests, particularly those composed of primary vegetation, ensures the precipitation and supply of ecosystem services [44,60].…”

Hydrological response of a headwater catchment in Southeast Brazil—Threshold patterns of stormflow response

“…Understanding both baseflow (i.e., main discharge component that maintains water availability during dry spells) and stormflow (i.e., quick flow prompted by rainfall events that can lead to flash floods) is key to understanding flow regimes in headwater catchments (Barnes, 2001; Blöschl et al, 2019; Viviroli et al, 2020) as well as the impacts of land‐use/cover changes on both high and low flows (Borma et al, 2022; Bruijnzeel, 1990; Filoso et al, 2017).…”

Water Quality Simulation in the Bois River, Goiás, Central Brazil

“…The Cerrado biome is a hotspot for the conservation of fauna and flora biodiversity, considered the watershed cradle, as it hosts headwaters that supply a good part of the Brazilian watersheds [1]. Population growth promotes an increase in the use of natural resources to supply the development of economic activities, be it in the industry, farming, and even our domestic use, causing an increase in effluent generation [2].…”