Abstract ID: 125

Can Protected Areas Protect the Amazon?

An important instrument in the conservation of Amazonian ecosystems is the system of protected areas, or PAs. The purpose of the present paper is to assess the extent to which the current system of PAs is capable of maintaining the ecological integrity of the Brazilian Amazon. Specifically, it asks if current PAs can sustain the ecosystems within them, in the extreme case that deforestation converts all forests to agriculture outside their collective boundaries. Thus, the results can be interpreted as a strong test on the adequacy of the current Brazilian plan for environmental conservation. To address this issue, we used the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS), a limited-area atmospheric model that takes land cover as a data input. Results indicate that in general, the western basin shows a more pronounced decrease in rainfall, in areal terms, than the eastern basin. Both basins reveal some latitudinal partitioning, with rainfall increasing in the north and south, and decreasing in the middle. The western basin mid-section area of rainfall decline is larger than in the east, stretching hundreds of kilometers. The area of decreased rainfall narrows its north-south extent considerably in the east, and tends to organize around BR-230. This highway forms a sharp demarcation between wetter and drier areas in places, particularly in the State of Pará. The northern area of increased rainfall tends to organize along the main stem of the Amazon River, at least in the eastern basin where increments are dramatic west and east of Santarém, the terminus of BR-163. To the south, an extensive region of increased rainfall occurs in Tocantins, Southern Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Acre. These results suggest that the drier ecosystems (savannas, semi-deciduous forests) in protected areas experience mostly rainfall increases, and would therefore not be affected by system-altering desiccation. Alternatively, rainfall decreases should not appreciably affect the moist systems found in protected areas.

Session:  Feedbacks to Climate - Effects of deforestation on regional and global climate.

Presentation Type:  Poster