Miscelánea 14

La expansión agrícola en el Chaco argentino: contrastes entre el litoral fluvial y el interior

Sebastián Torrella | Jorge Adámoli | Pablo Herrera | Rubén Ginzburg

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Abstract

AGRICULTURAL EXPANSION IN THE ARGENTINE CHACO: CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE FLUVIAL LITTORAL AND THE INNER SUB-REGIONS .- There is a marked contrast between agricultural development in the Wet Chaco (fluvial littoral sub-region) and the Sub-humid Chaco (inner sub-region). In the former the few lands suitable for agriculture, (which are surrounded by the flooded areas that predominate in the sub-region), have been occupied from the beginning of the XX century, while in the latter an intense process of agricultural frontier expansion is currently taking place. In this work, the agricultural expansion that occurred between 1992 and 2002 was quantified on two transects placed along the littoral and the inner sub-regions, by the use of satellite images and the development of a geographic information system. The differences among the distinct ecological sub-regions in each transect were analyzed in detail. Results show that the agriculture areas increased to 79% in the inner sub-region (mainly in the Central Subhumid Chaco and in the former riverbeds of the Juramento and Salado rivers) and only to 2% in the littoral sub-region.