The Human Footprint in Mexico: Physical Geography and Historical Legacies

Abstract

Using publicly available data on land use and transportation corridors we calculated the human footprint index for the whole of Mexico to identify large-scale spatial patterns in the anthropogenic transformation of the land surface. We developed a map of the human footprint for the whole country and identified the ecological regions that have most transformed by human action. Additionally, we analyzed the extent to which (a) physical geography, expressed spatially in the form of biomes and ecoregions, compared to (b) historical geography, expressed as the spatial distribution of past human settlements, have driven the patterns of human modification of the land. Overall Mexico still has 56% of its land surface with low impact from human activities, but these areas are not evenly distributed. The lowest values are on the arid north and northwest, and the tropical southeast, while the highest values run along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and from there inland along an east-to-west corridor that follows the Mexican transversal volcanic ranges and the associated upland plateau. The distribution of low- and high footprint areas within ecoregions forms a complex mosaic: the generally well-conserved Mexican deserts have some highly transformed agro-industrial areas, while many well-conserved, low footprint areas still persist in the highly-transformed ecoregions of central Mexico. We conclude that the spatial spread of the human footprint in Mexico is both the result of the limitations imposed by physical geography to human development at the biome level, and, within different biomes, of a complex history of past civilizations and technologies, including the 20th Century demographic explosion but also the spatial pattern of ancient settlements that were occupied by the Spanish Colony.

Assessing large-scale wildlife responses to human infrastructure development

“…The burgeoning availability of detailed geospatial layers of infrastructure contrasts with the lack of quantification of their effects, which still relies on expert knowledge and is mostly based on single species or local studies (14). As a result, mapping of the area of influence of infrastructure ranges from a few hundred meters (15) up to 50 km (10,11,16,17).…”

Land use/land cover change and extreme climatic events in the arid and semi-arid ecoregions of Mexico

“…Mexican arid and semi-arid ecosystems have been historically modified by humans (Challenger et al, 1998;García and Jurado, 2008;González-Abraham et al, 2015). The TA ecoregion is not exempt from this, as observed in the results section (Fig.…”

“…Land cover in these ecoregions continues to undergo profound changes due to the development of crop and livestock farming: a quarter of the national agricultural products are cultivated in these ecoregions, while one out of three kilograms of meat is produced here (SAGARPA, 2014). Official cartography generated by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (National Institute of Statistics and Geography, INEGI) of Mexico has been essential in monitoring LULCC in Mexico through the years, as reflected by recent efforts to characterize human impacts at the ecoregion level in the country (González-Abraham et al, 2015). In turn, exposure to ECE is monitored by the Centro Nacional de Prevención de Desastres (National Centre for Disaster Prevention, CENAPRED), which generates publicly available geographic information that maps differences in exposure to diverse ECE throughout the territory (CENAPRED, 2012(CENAPRED, , 2016.…”

Ecological guidelines for designing networks of marine reserves in the unique biophysical environment of the Gulf of California

“…They found that the west coast of the GOC appears to have low levels of land based threats because it is inaccessible and has a low human population density, except for the northern and southern tips of the peninsula where there are rapidly growing developments (Fig. 7b), a trend that continues based on a recent study (Gonzalez-Abraham et al 2015). In contrast, land based threats are much higher along the east coast of the GOC, in part driven by land-based nutrient pollution from farming activities that represent a potential risk to marine areas (Alvarez-Romero et al 2015).…”