Abstract
Reconciling environmental conservation with growing demands for food, water, and energy is a global challenge. Brazil, a major agricultural producer, grapples with deforestation’s environmental costs. The Araguaia River basin, vital for Brazil’s economic growth, undergoes significant land use changes. Assessing data from 1987 to 2019, we studied annual water surface variations, considering deforestation, agriculture, livestock farming land, and central pivot irrigation, and historical water flow series from 1980 to 2020 from 21 monitoring stations. We observed notable reductions in flooded areas (angular coefficients from 130 a 2,276 ha/year) and water flow the entire basin (b = − 13.84; t = − 4.8; P < 0.001) and its regions (Upper Araguaia: b = − 3.32; t = − 4.5; P < 0.001; Middle Araguaia: b = − 8.70; t = − 4.8; P < 0.001; Lower Araguaia: b = − 45.49, t = − 4.7; P < 0.001) over recent years. Water flow reductions persist year-round, with a marked decrease during low water periods (F3,8 = 8.82; P = 0,006), aligning with heightened water demand for intensive agriculture. Tributaries and the main channel show similar reduction processes (t = 0.16; g.l. = 19; P = 0.873). Ensuring the basin’s ecological flow is imperative for the aquatic ecosystem’s minimum requirements.
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Data availability
All data that we used were obtained in the MapBiomas project (https://mapbiomas.org/)—cumulative annual deforestation and water surface area—and the HidroWeb Portal (https://www.snirh.gov.br/hidroweb/)—historical series of water flow. These raw datasets are available as Supplementary Materials.
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Acknowledgements
This research was funded in part by the Decanato de Pesquisa e Inovação (DPI) of the University of Brasília (UnB) through the Edital UnB DPI/DPG Nº 03/2021. AST and LCM were supported by Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa do Distrito Federal (FAPDF) and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) master’s scholarship, respectively. LGCV was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) research grant.
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Decanato de Pesquisa e Inovação (DPI) of the University of Brasília (UnB), Edital UnB DPI/DPG Nº 03/2021, Carla Albuquerque de Souza
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. AdST, LCGV, CAdS, LCM and JVEB: Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed. AdST, LCGV: The first draft of the manuscript was written and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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dos Santos Teixeira, A., Vieira, L.C.G., de Souza, C.A. et al. Evidence of water surface and flow reduction in the main hydrographic basin of the Brazilian savannah (Cerrado biome): the Araguaia river. Hydrobiologia 851, 2503–2518 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-024-05471-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-024-05471-z