Based on land-use/land-cover (LU/LC) maps for the 1970s and satellite imagery for the 1990s we estimate LU/LC change and associated C fluxes in 3 subregions of the Selva Lacandona, Chiapas, Mexico. The total area of closed forest was reduced by 31%, whereas secondary forests expanded more than ninefold, secondary shrubs by almost sixfold, and cultivated land and pasture areas expanded 21% and 92%, respectively. However, the LU/LC change was not uniformly distributed over the entire study area. Total mean C densities ranged from 452 Mg C ha−1 for closed mature forests to a low of 120 Mg C ha−1 for pasture. The heavily converted areas lost an estimated 24% of their total 1976 C pools, whereas the low impacted region lost only 3%.
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1 December 2000
Carbon Flux and Patterns of Land-Use/ Land-Cover Change in the Selva Lacandona, Mexico
Ben H. J. De Jong,
Susana Ochoa-Gaona,
Miguel Angel Castillo-Santiago,
Neptalí Ramírez-Marcial,
Michael A. Cairns
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AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment
Vol. 29 • No. 8
December 2000
Vol. 29 • No. 8
December 2000
