Land-use and climate change risks in the Amazon and the need of a novel sustainable development paradigm

Abstract

For half a century, the process of economic integration of the Amazon has been based on intensive use of renewable and nonrenewable natural resources, which has brought significant basin-wide environmental alterations. The rural development in the Amazonia pushed the agricultural frontier swiftly, resulting in widespread land-cover change, but agriculture in the Amazon has been of low productivity and unsustainable. The loss of biodiversity and continued deforestation will lead to high risks of irreversible change of its tropical forests. It has been established by modeling studies that the Amazon may have two "tipping points," namely, temperature increase of 4°C or deforestation exceeding 40% of the forest area. If transgressed, large-scale "savannization" of mostly southern and eastern Amazon may take place. The region has warmed about 1°C over the last 60 y, and total deforestation is reaching 20% of the forested area. The recent significant reductions in deforestation-80% reduction in the Brazilian Amazon in the last decade-opens up opportunities for a novel sustainable development paradigm for the future of the Amazon. We argue for a new development paradigm-away from only attempting to reconcile maximizing conservation versus intensification of traditional agriculture and expansion of hydropower capacity-in which we research, develop, and scale a high-tech innovation approach that sees the Amazon as a global public good of biological assets that can enable the creation of innovative high-value products, services, and platforms through combining advanced digital, biological, and material technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in progress.Amazon tropical forests | Amazon sustainability | Amazon land use | Amazon savannization | climate change impacts

Monitoring Rainfall Patterns in the Southern Amazon with PERSIANN-CDR Data: Long-Term Characteristics and Trends

“…Indeed, Khanna et al [13] suggested that deforestation is sufficiently advanced to have caused a shift from a thermally-to a dynamically-driven climatic regime, which may affect the rainy season in the future. In this connection, previous studies have pointed to intensification of the dry season in the southern Amazon [15][16][17], and predicted intensification of rainfall during the rainy season [18] or changes in the wet-day and dry-day frequencies [19].…”

“…The intense land use changes, mainly characterized by high deforestation rates, that have taken place in this pioneer active frontier region in the last four decades partly explain the observed trend toward increased seasonality [20] and a shortening of the rainy season [16,17]. Such trends may have irreversible ecological impacts [44] and affect agricultural activities, which depend on the quantity of rainfall and temporal patterns [15,[47][48][49]. …”

“…The impacts of deforestation and agricultural development in the Amazon on local [10] and regional [11][12][13] climate are of particular concern. In addition to the impact of deforestation on global warming through greenhouse gas emissions, particulate emissions and changes in surface fluxes and in the carbon and water cycles ( [14] and references therein), changes in rainfall regimes in the Amazon are also of concern [15]. Indeed, Khanna et al [13] suggested that deforestation is sufficiently advanced to have caused a shift from a thermally-to a dynamically-driven climatic regime, which may affect the rainy season in the future.…”

Power plant fuel switching and air quality in a tropical, forested environment

“…Sulfur-laden oil and diesel are the historical fuels. The Amazon region is of vital importance for the functioning of both regional ecosystems and climate (Fisch et al, 1998;Nobre et al, 2016). Topics for research in recent years have included the relationship between the biosphere and the atmosphere in the Amazon (Fan et al, 1990;Stark et al, 2015); the impacts of land use change (Dickinson and Kennedy, 1992;Fearnside, 2003;Paula et al, 2014;WertzKanounnikoff et al, 2016); and the consequences of urbanization, population growth, and increased anthropogenic emissions to the composition of the atmosphere (Shukla et al, 1990;Potter et al, 2001;Wright, 2005;Malhi et al, 2008;Martin et al, 2016).…”

Effects of changes in land use and climate on water availability of a tropical catchment

“…Several studies have projected that land use and climate conditions of tropical regions in the future are generally characterized by a continuous reduction of tropical forest area due to cropland expansions, an increase in the average temperature (similarly to all regions in the world) and changes in the spatial and temporal precipitation variability at an uncertain magnitude (Thomson et al, 2010;Wohl et al, 2012;Nobre et al, 2016). As a result, the frequencies of droughts and floods in tropical regions related to land use and climate change are predicted to increase, resulting in threats to local or regional socio-economic development (IPCC, 2007;.…”