The international team of researchers from universities of San Luis in Argentina and Lancaster University in the UK used satellite imagery and field observations over the last four decades, as well as statistical modelling and hydrological simulations, to identify trends for groundwater and flooding. However, a new study, published today in Science, shows how these shifts to annual crop agriculture, which relies on rainfall rather than irrigation, is also rapidly disrupting the water table across the large flat regions of the Pampas and Chaco plains and contributing to significantly increased risks of surface flooding. This agricultural expansion has been taking place at a staggering rate of 2.1 million hectares a year.Įnvironmental concerns around biodiversity and soil degradation from these changes are long-standing. The grasslands of the Argentinean Pampas, famously home to the iconic Gaucho, along with other extensive flat plain areas of South America have been undergoing an intense transformation in recent decades.ĭriven by soaring international demand, extensive areas of grasslands, and forests across South American plains have rapidly been converted to the production of annual crops, such as soybean and maize.
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