Irrigation as Climate-Change Adaptation in the Cerrado Biome of Brazil Evaluated with New Quantitative Methods, Socio-Economic Analysis, and Scenario Models

The Brazilian Cerrado is one of the most important and threatened ecosystems in the world in terms of carbon fluxes, water resources, biodiversity, and social diversity including indigenous and other traditional communities. Agricultural expansion has become central to the Cerrado’s regional development and global food security, with western Bahia state being one of the most active agricultural frontiers worldwide. However, climate change is altering the dynamics of agricultural production in the region whereby a hotter and drier climate is driving an increase in irrigation to guarantee the viability of large-scale commercial agriculture. Yet, researchers still poorly understand the manner and extent to which this form of adaptation is taking place. This project will investigate land change in the Cerrado biome region and has three main objectives: (1) develop generally applicable methods with accompanying software to quantify and analyze land change and its associated socio-economic drivers and impacts, (2) examine the expansion of irrigated agriculture as a form of adaptation to climate change, and (3) develop spatially explicit scenario models that inform policies concerning agrarian development, water use, and climate change adaptations for the Cerrado, with implications for other savannah and semi-arid biomes worldwide.