Tradeoffs between economic and ecosystem services in Argentina during 50 years of land-use change

Farmland expanded quickly at the expense of natural lands in Argentina since the mid-1950ʹs without consideration of ecological costs. In order to analyze the implications of such changes we aimed to (i) develop a simple biophysical model to estimate the relative (0–100) provision of ecosystem services, (ii) calculate the economic value of food and fiber production derived from farming activities (economic services), and (iii) assess the tradeoffs between the provision of ecosystem and economic services. Land-use/land cover changes were studied through data from agricultural censuses in three historical periods (1956–1960, 1986–1990 and 2001–2005). The model uses biophysical data about biomass, water coverage, slope, soil infiltration capacity, temperature, precipitation and altitude. After testing the consistency of the model, its results were used to assess the relative ecological value of main regions across the country. On the other hand, the annual gross margin per hectare of farming activities was estimated in order to compare 1956–1960 and 2001–2005 periods that greatly differ in their regional farming model. Results showed that different regions respond differently to human intervention, both in economic and ecological terms, and any attempt to apply sole and centralized land-use strategies to different biomes may lead to undesirable outcomes. Economic and ecological criteria should be regionally balanced as a pre-requisite to the application of land-use policies.