Agribusiness, which involves the burning or clearing of vast areas of forest to make way for crops and livestock, is the leading cause of deforestation worldwide.
FREMONT CA: A new study warns that the transition zone between the Amazon and the Cerrado, where the world's largest rainforest meets its largest tropical savanna, is heating up, posing serious threats to both biomes. The combination of agriculture-driven deforestation and global climate change is extending the dry season in this mixed landscape of open grasslands and closed forests, increasing the risk of severe droughts and forest fires in the Amazon and throughout the Cerrado.
The rising temperatures, decreased rainfall, and an increase in the number of dry days collides in this region. The international team of researchers used meteorological and satellite data to analyze changes in hydrological and climate variables across the Amazon over the last four decades, which was published in the journal Scientific Reports. This enabled them to identify rainforest regions that experienced long-term warming or drought from 1981 to 2020.
The temperature in the Amazon-Cerrado transition zone increased steadily during this time period, with a significant rise of nearly 1° Celsius (1.8° Fahrenheit) in just the last 20 years. The data also show that rainfall in the region has decreased by 0.08 millimeters (0.003 inches) per day per decade, while the frequency of dry days has increased by 1.5 days per decade. The region's dry conditions have gotten worse in the last two decades as the dry-to-wet season is becoming warmer, drier, and longer.
Droughts occur in the region naturally as a result of El Nino events and warmer sea surface temperatures. The expansion of the agricultural region of Matopiba, which covers the border area of the northeastern states of Maranho, Tocantins, Piau, and Bahia, coincides with the intensification of harsh weather in the area. Soybeans, whose cultivated area has risen dramatically in the last two decades, account for a large portion of the land clearing in this area.
The development in Matopiba has resulted in massive deforestation and the region still struggles with poverty and inequality. The key factors for the region to heat up and dry over the past few decades includes deforestation, poorly managed agriculture expansion and global climate change Deforestation has a clear impact in the hydrological cycle because it reduces the evapotranspiration, indicating the amount of water returned to the atmosphere by vegetation.
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