Land use changes in the Paraguayan Pantanal ecoregion between 1987 and 2020
Iris Carolina VALDEZ ACHUCARRO, Université Côte d'Azur, UMR CNRS ESPACE laboratory, France
Julien ANDRIEU, Université Côte d'Azur, UMR CNRS ESPACE laboratory, France
Stéphane BOUISSOU, Université Côte d'Azur, UMR CNRS ESPACE laboratory, France
Land use changes are a widespread issue in South America. They take place in the Amazon rainforest, but also in other biomes and countries such as Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. Wherever the place, the sources are always the agricultural and livestock production sites. One of the most affected biomes is the Pantanal, which is considered the largest wetland on Earth. It extends between Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 and is also recognized as a wetland of international importance by the RAMSAR Convention. Understanding how these changes have occurred spatially and temporally is of primary importance not only for scientific purposes, but also for policy makers. Indeed, the Paraguayan Pantanal Ecoregion remains poorly studied and the necessary scientific basis to undertake appropriate restoration and conservation measures remains absent. Therefore, the goal of this study is to analyze the land cover dynamics in the Paraguayan Pantanal over the last 33 years. The start date chosen was 1987, the first decree establishing norms for the protection of the environment was established the previous year and considered a milestone. An intermediate date, 2004 (between 1987 and 2020), was also chosen, corresponding to the year of the Zero Deforestation Law in the Oriental Region was enacted. A multi-temporal analysis of Landsat satellite images was conducted. To create the land cover and transition maps, an unsupervised stacked classification was carried out. Results showed that between the periods 1987-2004, 2004-2020, and 1987-2020, there was respectively 3,014.4 km² (7.9%), 5,944.5 km² (15.6%), and 9,118.9 km² (23.9%) of deforestation. The most substantial land use changes were the transformation of forest into herbaceous vegetation and bare soils. It is thus urgent to implement new regulations considering the current landscape situation, and to identify strategies to balance farming production and conservation goals.
Mots clés : Pantanal|wetland|remote sensing |land-cover changes|deforestation
A102780IV