M.V.R Ballester

• University of São Paulo

Forest conservation on privately owned lands is a cornerstone of the Brazilian environmental policy framework. Brazilian legislation requires that all farms in the country maintain and protect forest areas known as Legal Reserves. Since Legal Reserves have major implications for forest conservation and agricultural production, it is key that we und...

The conservation and sustainable use of the biodiversity is the great challenge of the millennium in a word where food production, energy and nature have needed co-exist together. However, it will be possible if the traditional ecological knowledge is recognized and included to developing of strategies for conservation. Amazon nut (Bertholetia exce...

Anthropogenic disturbances and climate change have direct consequences on the biodiversity in Amazon Rainforest. Amazon nut (Bertholetia excelsa Bonpl.) is a native species from amazon, and has been severely threatened because of human interest on its timber and seeds. Amazon nut trees also have a substantial ecological and social role, both at reg...

Since the early 1970s, the agricultural frontier of southeastern Amazon has undergone extensive land use changes. These alterations, combined with regional climate changes, have the potential to influence the hydrologic cycle at small to large scales. We evaluated a 40-year time series (1976 to 2015) of rainfall and water yield and related them to...

Genetic diversity of tree populations is mainly determined by pollen and seed flow. In turn, dispersal agents are affected by landscape composition and configuration. Understanding the effects of anthropization on pollen and seed dispersal in natural environments is crucial to developing long-term strategies for in situ and ex situ conservation of...

Aim: Amazon-nut (Bertholletia excelsa) is a hyperdominant and protected tree species, playing a keystone role in nutrient cycling and ecosystem service provision in Amazonia. Our main goal was to develop a robust habitat suitability model of Amazon-nut and to identify the most important predictor variables to support conservation and tree planting...

Land use and land cover (LULC) are intrinsically tied to ecological and social dynamics. Still, classifying LULC in ecotones, where landscapes are commonly heterogeneous and have a wide range of physiognomies, remains a challenge. Here we present a three-level hierarchical classification approach, using both Landsat and MODIS images, and both pixel...

Global climate and environmental changes related to the use of fossil fuels and inequitable development make it unethical not to pursue more equitable energy development that includes bioenergy. To achieve sustainable development, competitiveness and costs of bioenergy production need to be addressed in a manner that considers not only economic gai...

The H2020 LANDMARK project seeks to “make the most of our land” by utilising Functional Land Management (FLM) as a policy framework to balance the ‘supply’ (determined as: soil x environment x management) with ‘demands’ (societal expectations framed as policy drivers) for five soil functions (Fig. 1) across the EU, at a range of spatial scales. Dec...

This presentation was carried on at the University of Surrey and it was one of the 10 awarded PhD project worldwide in 2017. Abstract: Meeting demands for goods is the main driver of Land Use change (LUc). LUc occurs at tropical agricultural frontiers according to emerging socioeconomic and environmental conflicts. While LUc increases income and em...

Bioenergy has been under intense scrutiny over the last ten years with significant research efforts in many countries taking place to define and measure sustainable practices. We describe here the main challenges and policy issues, and provide policy recommendations for scaling up sustainable bioenergy approaches globally. The 2016 Intended Nationa...

Many rivers experience a season-specific annual pulse that plays an important role in the nutrient dynamics of its riparian forests. Hence one would expect that these forests may undergo seasonally-enhanced inputs with potential to change its nutrient cycling. We studied the concentrations and fluxes of dissolved organic (DOC) and inorganic (DIC) c...

The Cerrado is one of the most threatened biomes in South America. To create protection actions on any scale, understanding drivers and consequences of land cover and land use (LC and LU) is essential. This study defines the composition and configuration of a Cerrado landscape watershed from 1975 to 2011. Using Landsat images and socioeconomic cens...

Anthropogenic disturbances and climate change have direct consequences on the biodiversity in Amazon Rainforest. Amazon nut (Bertholetia excelsa Bonpl.) is a native species from amazon, and has been severely threatened because of human interest on its timber and seeds. Amazon nut trees also have a substantial ecological and social role, both at reg...

Tem havido a expansão do complexo sucroalcooleiro para as regiões Centro-Norte do país, devido ao aumento da demanda pelo etanol, tornando relevante a elaboração do zoneamento agroclimático para a cultura da cana-de-açúcar para essas regiões, notadamente para o estado do Tocantins. As informações climáticas e edáficas favorecem a determinação de ár...

The flux of methane (CH4) from inland waters to the atmosphere has a profound impact on global atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) levels, and yet, strikingly little is known about the dynamics controlling sources and sinks of CH4 in the aquatic setting. Here, we examine the cycling and flux of CH4 in six large rivers in the Amazon basin, including th...

There is a lack of information on the seasonal changes in the floodplain habitat in the Amazon regions of Brazil. This lack of information is due to the large size of the Amazon, persistent cloud cover and difficult access for field campaigns. Satellite radar sensors can provide multitemporal images over these cloudy tropical regions which can resu...

Methane (CH4 ) fluxes from world rivers are still poorly constrained, with measurements restricted mainly to temperate climates. Additional river flux measurements, including spatio-temporal studies, are important to refine extrapolations. Here we assess the spatio-temporal variability of CH4 fluxes from the Amazon and its main tributaries, the Neg...

The emission of methane (CH4) from rivers is not always included in the total C budget for inland waters, mainly due to a lack of information available for these systems. Unraveling the dynamics that control fluvial CH4 sources and sinks is critical for understanding the contribution of CH4 to riverine and global carbon budgets. Here, we present es...

Current estimates of CO2 outgassing from Amazonian rivers and streams have considerable uncertainty since they are based on limited-time surveys of pCO2 measurements along the Amazon mainstem and mouths of major tributaries, using conservative estimates of gas exchange velocities. In order to refine basin-scale CO2 efflux estimates from Amazonian r...

Earth Observation Satellite (EOS) data have a great potential for land cover mapping, which is mostly based on high resolution images. However, in tropical areas the use of these images is seriously limited due to the presence of clouds. This paper evaluates the ability of temporal-based image classification methods to produce land cover maps in tr...

Conventional image classification based on pixels hinders the possibilities to obtain information contained in images, while modern object-based classification methods increase the acquisition of information about the object and the context in which it is inserted in the image. The objective of this study was to investigate the performance of diffe...

As Brazil is the greatest producer of sugar-cane in the world, it has to include sustainability in it's supply chain and so, first, it has to meet the demands of environmental laws, knowing that sugar-cane burning will be banned because of the health problems caused in the adjacent populations of the plantations. Thus, GIS techniques can help envir...

Rates of deforestation in the Amazon region have been accelerating, but the quan-tity and timing of nutrient losses from forested and deforested ecosystems are poorly understood. This paper investigates the broad variation in soil properties of the Amazon Basin as they influence transfers of plant nutrients from the terrestrial biosphere to the atm...

One of the less studied components of carbon cycling that could improve our understanding of how and how strongly Amazonian ecosystems act as sinks or sources of carbon is the amount that is carried downstream by rivers. In this paper, we show that a headwater river can carry from 25 to 130 % of the reported sink for Amazonian forests, therefore no...

Land cover change maps are recognized as an important environmental asset, but are difficult to produce on a routine basis. Earth Observation Satellite (EOS) images have a great potential for land cover mapping, which is mostly based on high resolution image data. However, in tropical areas the use of these images is seriously limited due to presen...

Inland water is already known as an important source of methane to atmosphere. Methane is produced in anaerobic environments usually find in lakes and floodplain bottom sediment. It is the main reason that almost all information regarding methane flux come from this environments. However, while floodplain dries during low water season reducing meth...

To evaluate physical and human controls organic matter carbon composition in tropical rivers, we applied an integrated analysis of landscape properties and riverine isotopic composition. Our goal was to establish the relationships between basin attributes and forms and composition of dissolved and particulate organic matter in rivers. A GIS templat...

The Amazon basin holds a wide variety of river waters with characteristic chemical signatures imprinted by basin geomorphology, rock types and weathering environments. Extremely contrasting cases are rivers such as the Solimoes, which drains Andean terrain with resulting high ionic content and suspended sediments and the ionic-poor blackish waters...

Phosphorus (P) is both an agent of global change, with P loads increasing in most global environments due to the loss of mined phosphate from agricultural, industrial, and urban environments, and is affected by global change processes such as land degradation or the need for P in biofuel production. P plays a fundamental role in food security and,...

Concentrations of cations (Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, K+, NH4 +), anions (HCO3 −, Cl−, NO3 −, SO4 2−, PO4 3−) and suspended sediments in the Madeira River water were determined near the city of Porto Velho (RO), in order to assess variation in water chemistry from 2004 to 2007. Calcium and bicarbonate were the dominant cation and anion, respectively. Signifi...

Human activities that modify land cover can alter the structure and biogeochemistry of small streams but these effects are poorly known over large regions of the humid tropics where rates of forest clearing are high. We examined how conversion of Amazon lowland tropical forest to cattle pasture influenced the physical and chemical structure, organi...

Biogeochemistry is hosting this special thematic issue devoted to studies of land–water interactions, as part of the Large-scale Biosphere–Atmosphere Experiment in Amazônia (LBA). This compilation of papers covers a broad range of topics with a common theme of coupling land and water processes, across pristine and impacted systems. Findings highlig...

Groundwater quality of a riparian forest is compared to wells in surrounding rural areas at Urupá River basin. Groundwater types were calcium bicarbonated at left margin and sodium chloride at right, whereas riparian wells exhibited a combination of both (sodium bicarbonate). Groundwater was mostly solute-depleted with concentrations within permiss...

Tropical climates are characterized by high temperatures that do not fall below 18°C in the coolest month, according to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system (Peel et al. 2007). This temperature regime strongly influences hydrology both at the global and local (10–102km2) scales. Globally, irradiance from the sun affects the circulation o...

Use change and land cover has significant influence on energy flows. Thus, this study aimed to compare the net radiation and soil heat flux on two dates, 19/07/1984 and 25/06/2010 from a locality of river basin Ji-Paraná, Rondônia. To develop the study, an algorithm Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) allowing the estimation of energy...

Processes operating both in the atmosphere and inside the canopy may significantly modify nitrogen inputs to forest ecosystems. We monitored the fluxes of water and dissolved inorganic nitrogen (as nitrate and ammonium) in different flowpaths within 2-ha parcel of a riparian forest in the Southwestern Brazilian Amazon (Rondônia State) for 18 months...

Savanna and Amazon Forest have undergone large degradation in the last decades due to intensive soil use for the human activities. The transition zones between these two biomes overlap in most part of their extension with the arc of deforestation. Despite of the importance of this ecotone region, few studies have been done in this area. This paper...

Through the evolution of the Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia, fluvial systems evolved from being regarded as ecologically interesting, but not necessarily relevant to the carbon budget, to important systems outgassing a volume of CO2 roughly equal to the carbon sequestered by the forest. Resolving the role of fluvial systems...

A recent estimate of CO2 outgassing from Amazonian wetlands suggests that an order of magnitude more CO2 leaves rivers through gas exchange with the atmosphere than is exported to the ocean as organic plus inorganic carbon. However, the contribution of smaller rivers is still poorly understood, mainly because of limitations in mapping their spatial...

A recent estimate of CO 2 outgassing from Amazonian wetlands suggests that an order of magnitude more CO 2 leaves rivers through gas exchange with the atmosphere than is exported to the ocean as organic plus inorganic carbon. However, the contribution of smaller rivers is still poorly understood, mainly because of limitations in mapping their spati...

The spatial and temporal variability of dissolved oxygen (DO), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), nitrate concentration and total coliform (TC) were investigated at nine sampling stations distributed along the main rivers of the Piracicaba River Basin, a 12,400 km2 catchment located in São Paulo State, one of the most developed regions of Brazil. Spa...

The Thornthwaite-Mather climatological model integrated into a Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to simulate the monthly water balance for the Ji-Parana river basin, in the western Amazonian state of Rondonia (RO), from February 1995 through December 1996. Model inputs were Advanced Very High Resolution Radar (AVHRR) images, rainfall fro...

A recent estimate of CO2 outgassing from Amazonian wetlands suggests that an order of magnitude more CO2 leaves rivers through gas exchange than is exported to the ocean as organic or inorganic carbon. However, the contribution of smaller rivers, is still poorly understood, mainly due to limitations in mapping their exact extent. Considering that t...

We investigated how clearing of the tropical rainforest for cattle pasture along small, terra firme lowland streams in the Brazilian Amazon influenced stream hydraulic characteristics, solute concentrations and uptake of dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus. Measurements of stream channel structure, hydraulic properties and nutrient uptake w...

High levels of the direct evasion of CO2 from drainage waters in the humid tropics forces us to revise our concept of the mechanisms coupling terrestrial and aquatic environments at regional scales. Ongoing synthetic activities in LBA are examining the sequence of processes, from small to large scales, which defines the role of fluvial systems in t...

Cell-to-cell surface flow paths are commonly derived from gridded digital elevation models (DEM) by choosing the direction of steepest descent to one of the eight surrounding cells. However, adequate DEMs often are not available. We developed a topography-independent method for creating gridded, land and stream drainage direction maps based on corr...

In the Amazon basin, seasonal and interannual spectral changes measured by satellites result from anthropogenic disturbance and from the interaction between climate variation and the surface cover. Measurements of spectral change, and the characterization of that change, provide information concerning the physical processes evident at this mesoscal...

In this article we present the results of the effects of land use change on the river biogeochemistry of the Ji-Paraná basin (Rondônia). In this region, the spatial distribution of deforestation and soil properties result in different biogeochemical signals, allowing the division of the fluvial systems into three groups: rivers with low ionic conce...

Central Rondônia is one of the most deforested regions in the Brazilian Amazon and contains areas at different stages of degradation forming a gradient from mature forest to highly urbanized and built-up areas. Regional data from satellite imagery are available from the 1980s, but apart from studies that quantify deforestation, the broad-scale land...

The objective of this study was to analyze the condition of the Permanent Preservation Areas (PPAs) of the Ribeirão dos Marins river basin using geoprocessing techniques in the scope of the environmental legislation and the Forestry Code, which aim to ensure the preservation of the PPAs and its environmental function. This analysis was performed th...

The biogeochemical signal (the composite hydrological and chemical distributions of C, N, O, and P species) at the downstream end of a major tributary can nominally be used to identify different drainage basin source regions, reaches or stages, and can be tied to landscape-related processes such as chemical weathering and nutrient retention by loca...

The large amount of vital field information gathered by the Large Scale Atmosphere-Biosphere Experiment in Amazonia has significantly improved our knowledge of the Amazon ecosystem dynamics. Due to the extent of the amazon basin, models have become key tools to synthesize this knowledge and to improve the understanding of the basin wide ecosystem f...

In this study we present the results of an integrated analysis of physical and anthropogenic controls of river biogeochemistry in Amazônia. At the meso-scale level, our results show that both soil properties and land use are the main drivers of river biogeochemistry and metabolism, with pasture cover and soil exchange cation capacity explaining 99%...

We investigated the influences of forest or pasture land use and stream size on particulate and dissolved material concentrations in a network of second to third order streams in Rondonia, in the Brazilian Amazon. During the dry season, a second order stream originating in pasture had lower concentrations of dissolved oxygen and nitrate, higher con...

We investigated the forms and composition of dissolved and particulate or- ganic matter in rivers of the Ji-ParanaBasin, which is situated at the southern limit of the Amazon lowlands and has experienced extensive deforestation in the last three decades (;35 000 km 2 ). Our objective was to investigate how extensive land-use changes, from forest to...

Amazônia is one of the most important ecosystems of the planet, containing the largest extent of contiguous tropical rain forest on earth, over 5 million square kilometers. While most of the region remains forested, rapid development has led, over the past two decades, to the destruction of over 589,000 km2 of forests in Brazil alone. Forest cleari...

Anthropogenic N inputs and riverine export were determined for a meso-scale river basin in one of the most developed and economically important regions of South America. The Piracicaba River basin is located in southeastern Brazil and drains into a tributary of the Paran River. The basin supports over 3 million people (about 2% of the population of...

High levels of wet N and acidic deposition were measured in southeast Brazil. In this study we addressed the sensitivity of water bodies and soils to acidification and N deposition in the Piracicaba River basin (12,400 km2). Average acid neutralization capacity (ANC) at 23 river sampling sites varied from 350 to 1800 microeq l(-1). Therefore, river...

Attempts to map vegetation types, especially pasture, from satellite sensor data in tropical and sub-tropical regions very often have limited success. This study analyses the accuracy of two classifications of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM), with the aim of distinguishing the pastures from other vegetation classes in a meso-scale basin (12 400 km 2,...

To comprehend how land use change is affecting river biogeochemistry, it is necessary to identify the structural and functional alterations of the landscape configuration and composition, key attributes to understand how river biogeochemical signals are generated, maintained and altered by human intervention. Here we present the results of an integ...

The elemental and isotopic composition of particulate and dissolved organic matter was investigated in the Piracicaba River basin, São Paulo State, Brazil. Comparison of riverine organic matter from the Piracicaba River basin, a region where rivers and streams receive urban sewage and industrial effluents, with data reported for the pristine Amazon...

Terrestrial ecosystems in the humid tropics play a potentially important but presently ambiguous role in the global carbon cycle. Whereas global estimates of atmospheric CO2 exchange indicate that the tropics are near equilibrium or are a source with respect to carbon, ground-based estimates indicate that the amount of carbon that is being absorbed...

In Brazil most of the urban sewage is dumped without treatment into rivers. Because of this, it is extremely important to evaluate the consequences of organic matter rich sewage on the structure and functioning of river ecosystems. In this study we investigated the effects of urban sewage on the dissolved oxygen (O2), dissolved inorganic (DIC) and...

Figure 2. Relationships between variables and LUI (land use index) for the Cabras (closed circle) and Pisca (open circle) catchments. Both catchment were pooled together in this figure, however, statistical tests were performed separately for each catchment. Download figure to PowerPoint

The influences of different kinds of anthropogenic activities on rainwater chemistry in a tropical area were studied during one uninterrupted year at Piracicaba River Basin (Southeast Brazil). A total of 272 rainwater samples collected continuously from August 1997 to July 1998 at four different sites were analyzed for F−, CH3COO−, HCOO−, MSA, Cl−,...

Analysis of the distribution of biogenic gases in the floodplain of the Mogi-Guaçu River (São Paulo, Brazil) enabled the establishment of a "redox hierarchy", in which the main channel was the most oxidizing environment, followed by Diogo Lake, with Infernão Lake having the most reducing conditions of the subsystems evaluated. Diogo Lake exported a...

Remote sensing data, a GIS, and the Universal Soil Loss Equation model (USLE) are used to develop maps of erosion risk in the Piracicaba River Basin, south-eastern Brazil. The mapping program was designed to determine soil erosion losses under various land uses and the extent to which land use changes affected erosion risk during 1978–1993. To eval...

The objective of this study was to test adequability of the CENTURY model to simulate the effects of land use changes on soil carbon content and net primary production to specific subtropical Brazilian environmental conditions. After parameterization, simulations were performed for forested areas, pasture and sugarcane cultures which have economica...

Neste trabalho teve-se como objetivo testar o modelo CENTURY para simular os efeitos das mudanças de uso da terra nos teores de carbono no solo e na produção primária líquida na bacia do rio Piracicaba, SP. O modelo foi parametrizado e as simulações foram realizadas considerando-se áreas de florestas, pastagens e cana-de-açúcar, dada a sua importân...

Assuming the paradigm that catchment vegetation is the main source of particulate organic matter (POM) to rivers, the main objective of this study was to determine what the proportion of original C3 carbon from the forest had already been replaced by C4 carbon from sugar cane and pasture in the rivers of the Piracicaba Basin. In order to achieve th...

Assuming the paradigm that catchment vegetation is the main source of particulate organic matter (POM) to rivers, the main objective of this study was to determine what the proportion of original C3 carbon from the forest had already been replaced by C4 carbon from sugar cane and pasture in the rivers of the Piracicaba Basin. In order to achieve th...

Concentrations of biogenic gases (O2 and CO2) and respiration rates were measured at 7 sites along major tributaries of the Piracicaba River to address the effects of sewage loading on aquatic metabolism. Strictly aerobic conditions were observed at upstream sites (less polluted), with concentrations of O2 at or above and CO2 slightly above atmosph...

Water samples were collected from 7 locations along major rivers of Piracicaba River basin for 22 months. The 4 upstream points represent non-polluted sites and the 3 downriver points represent polluted sites. Due to sewage input, concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), major conservative cations and anio...

A TM/Landsat5 time series was digitally processed to identify sample stations, according to the age of macrophyte stands. These areas were sampled to assess the respiratory process of the Tucurui reservoir, Para State, Brazil. The results suggest that tributaries often occupied by floating macrophytes are significant methane sources to the atmosphe...

The Piracicaba river basin is a subtropical watershed located in the southeastern region of Brazil. With an area of 12 400 km^2, the basin is a typical example of new landscape resulting from development in tropical and sub-tropical regions: establishment of intensive industrial and agricultural processes were followed by significant population gro...

Monthly average surface air temperature records from 17 stations in the Brazilian Amazon from 1913 to 1995 were used to compute annual air temperature means. The data were converted into temperature anomalies, as the differences between annual mean temperatures and the mean temperature of a reference period (1958-85). By averaging the anomalies, an...

RESUMO Realizou-se neste trabalho, a análise exploratória e a modelagem estocástica das séries anuais de vazão dos três principais rios da bacia do Piracicaba, no período entre 1930 e 1995. Esta bacia está localizada numa das regiões mais desenvolvidas do Brasil, e vem sendo modificada ao longo dos anos devido a uma série de ações antrópicas, sendo...

The size and diversity of the Amazon region make it difficult to know the area and the spatial distribution of its habitats. The use of satellite imagery can help to map those habitats. In this study, images acquired by the Thematic Mapper sensor on board of the American satellite Landsat-5 were used to map floodplain habitats within reach of the A...

A technique for mapping areas of soil erosion risk based on Remote Sensing, Geographycal Information Systens and the Universal Soil Loss Equation model is presented and its use in a meso-scale river basin (Piracicaba River Basin) is discussed. The Universal Soil Loss Equation allows methodological decision-making in soil conservation planing on a s...

In the last three decades the Rondônia State -Brazil experienced high deforestation rates and an intensification of the land use and management, as a resulting of colonization projects from the Federal Government. The general objective of the current research is to identify the relationship between deforestation dynamic and spatial distribution of...

Deforestation estimation for Brazilian Legal Amazon from 2003-2004 was 26.130km 2 . This represents an increase of 6,23% compared to the last period, the second worst deforestation rate ever (INPE, 2004). This grave matter can be accelerated by the construction and paving of highways like BR163 in Pará. The average annual population growth rate in...

A Amazônica apresenta a maior área contínua de floresta tropical do planeta, com uma extensão aproximada de 7 milhões de km2, sendo a maior área localizada em território brasileiro (67,8%). Com toda essa extensão esta região apresenta características geomorfológicas e climáticas distintas. A porção brasileira da Amazônia, conhecida como Amazônia Le...

The objectives of this study are: Evaluate the land use changes in the Marins watershed during a 38 years period and identify the relationship between physical and anthropic aspects of the drainage basin and the water quality in the channel. Aerial photographs for the years 1962 and 2000 (scale 1:25,000) were used for obtaining thematic maps. Durin...

Through the use of a simple water balance model in conjunction with a Geographic Information System (GIS), the water balance for the entire Ji-Paraná river basin was estimated, using only some simple input parameters. The water balance model was inserted into the GIS program and applied to each individual pixel on the image in order to obtain an es...