Recent Land Use Changes Research Articles

Hidden Archaeological Remains in Heterogeneous Vegetation: A Crop Marks Study in Fortified Settlements of Northwestern Iberian Peninsula

This study evaluates the effectiveness of multispectral imaging via Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), in combination with advanced digital image processing techniques, for the detection and mapping of archaeological sites within diverse landscapes. The research focuses on six case studies located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, a region marked by complex vegetation patterns and varying topography. The primary objective is to assess the potential of these non-invasive remote sensing techniques in identifying crop marks associated with buried structures from ancient, fortified settlements. By means of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and vegetation indices, the study aims to pinpoint areas of interest that may indicate the presence of archaeological features, while effectively distinguishing them from modern disturbances or natural terrain variations. The research encountered several challenges, including seasonal variations in crop conditions and recent land-use changes. The methodology successfully identified distinct archaeological features. In some instances, natural vegetation variability, typically seen as an obstacle, enhanced the visibility of crop marks, aiding in the detection of underlying structures. These results offer a cost-effective and scalable option for preliminary archaeological surveys, particularly in refining survey methodologies and guiding future excavation efforts aimed at uncovering and preserving ancient, fortified settlements in the region.

Devastation of the cerrado of mato grosso do sul and the advance of arenization in the pardo river watershed

Despite the significant biodiversity in the Cerrado, the process of occupation, subsequent economic cycles, and intensification of agriculture in a predatory manner have caused profound alterations in this biome. This study analyzed changes in land use and land cover in the Cerrado of Mato Grosso do Sul between 1985 and 2022 by mapping and also investigating the formation and dynamics of sand dunes in the Bauru sedimentary basin, focusing on the Pardo River watershed. MapBiomas Network data, collection 8, were used for land use and land cover analysis. Arenization foci cartography was conducted using brightness index 2 based on Sentinel-2 satellite images in Sentinel Application Platform software. The historical analysis of land use and cover in the Cerrado of Mato Grosso do Sul revealed a rapid transformation of the landscape, with a drastic reduction of native vegetation and an intensification of large-scale monocultures. Between 1985 and 2022, the Cerrado of Mato Grosso Sul lost 4.6 million hectares of native vegetation (forest formations, savannahs, grasslands, and wetlands), representing 24.54% of this territory. Recent changes in land use include pasture-soybean and pasture-eucalyptus. In the Pardo River watershed, arenization foci cover an area of 17,834.34 hectares, with varying dimensions ranging from less than 1 hectare to 376.41 hectares. The arenization process occurs in different slope compartments, such as the base, slope, and interfluves. The physical and chemical characteristics of Quartzipsamments, such as low organic carbon content in soil, are associated with high rates of surface exposure and weakened load-dependent structures, leading to degradation. Arenization occurs where natural vegetation has been suppressed and soil has been depleted by poorly managed production processes.

Biodiversity impacts of recent land-use change driven by increases in agri-food imports

AbstractLand-use change such as the conversion of natural habitat to agricultural land has been a major driver of global biodiversity loss, prompting efforts at biodiversity restoration. However, restoration measures in certain areas can shift the detrimental biodiversity impacts elsewhere through the outsourcing of agri-food supply chains to biodiverse regions. This study examines the link between biodiversity impacts from land-use change and shifts in global supply chains from 1995 to 2022 by introducing a marginal allocation into multiregional input–output analysis. Almost 80% of recent global land-use change impacts were associated with increased agri-food exports from Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia + Pacific (excluding China). Conversely, increased imports to China, the United States, Europe and the Middle East accounted for almost 60% of recent global land-use change impacts from a consumption perspective, despite decreasing domestic impacts through restoration. Decreasing biodiversity impacts in temperate and arid regions have been partially achieved by outsourcing agri-food supply to tropical biodiversity hotspots. This results in a cumulated global extinction rate (1.4% global potential species loss since 1995), exceeding the planetary boundary by about fifty times, thus highlighting the need for policies incentivizing habitat protection in tropical regions and sustainable sourcing in agri-food supply chains.

Regulating belonging: Contradictions in Puerto Rico’s agricultural land-use policies

Zoning regulates which land uses belong on land. Also, zoning ordinances signal the local government’s intent for land use regulation and its consequent exclusion of land uses, activities, and people. Exclusionary zoning has been well studied in urban settings, but less is known about its impact on farmlands. The archipelago of Puerto Rico serves as an important case to examine recent land-use policy changes and the government’s intent on agricultural lands. This paper examines the 2010, 2015, 2019, 2020, and 2022 Joint Permit Regulations to ask: What rhetorical work do these five regulations employ for agricultural land? What insights do each of the Joint Permit Regulation offer about the government’s intent for agricultural land? How do these regulations shape Puerto Rico’s agricultural landscape and whose interest do they serve? To answer these questions, I employ two policy analytical methods, policy archeology and genealogy, along with five key subject-matter experts’ interviews to assess how municipal-level zoning policies articulate territorialized politics of belonging on agricultural land zoned as productive agriculture (agrícola productivo, in Spanish). Theoretical thematic analysis from interviews with subject-matter experts shows how the official planning discourse in Puerto Rico uses the cover of disaster recovery and sustainable development to foster land dispossession and exclusion of farmers on Puerto Rico’s most valuable agricultural land.

Population dynamics of the Lyme disease bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, during rapid range expansion in New York State.

Recent changes in climate and human land-use have resulted in alterations of the geographic range of many species, including human pathogens. Geographic range expansion and population growth of human pathogens increase human disease risk. Relatively little empirical work has investigated the impact of range changes on within-population variability, a contributor to both colonization success and adaptive potential, during the precise time in which populations are colonized. This is likely due to the difficulties of collecting appropriate natural samples during the dynamic phase of migration and colonization. We systematically collected blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) across New York State (NY), USA, between 2006 and 2019, a time period coinciding with a rapid range expansion of ticks and their associated pathogens including Borrelia burgdorferi, the etiological agent of Lyme disease. These samples provide a unique opportunity to investigate the population dynamics of human pathogens as they expand into novel territory. We observed that founder effects were short-lived, as gene flow from long-established populations brought almost all B. burgdorferi lineages to newly colonized populations within just a few years of colonization. By 7 years post-colonization, B. burgdorferi lineage frequency distributions were indistinguishable from long-established sites, indicating that local B. burgdorferi populations experience similar selective pressures despite geographic separation. The B. burgdorferi lineage dynamics elucidate the processes underlying the range expansion and demonstrate that migration into, and selection within, newly colonized sites operate on different time scales.

Significant decline in habitat specialists in semi-dry grasslands over four decades

Semi-dry grasslands are among the most species-rich plant communities in the world, harbouring many specialised and threatened species. Most of these grasslands were traditionally maintained by grazing and hay-making. After traditional management ended, protected areas were established and conservation management was introduced to protect the most valuable grassland sites. However, recent changes in land use, eutrophication and climate warming are negatively impacting the biodiversity of these grasslands. In 2022, we resurveyed historical vegetation plots in the Central Moravian Carpathians (Czech Republic), first sampled in the 1980s, to test whether the plant species composition and richness of semi-dry grasslands are changing over time and, if so, whether the decline in habitat quality and plant diversity is absent or less severe in protected areas. We found significant changes in species composition. Species richness and the proportion of habitat specialists and Red-List species decreased, whereas competitively stronger species with higher moisture and nutrient requirements increased. These trends were more pronounced outside the protected areas but also occurred within protected areas. The main factor behind these changes appears to be the cessation of traditional management and natural succession supported by eutrophication.

Browning of Scottish surface water sources exposed to climate change

Levels of dissolved natural organic matter (DNOM) are increasing in our boreal watercourses. This is manifested by an apparent increase in its yellow to brown colour of the water, i.e., browning. Sound predictions of future changes in colour of our freshwaters is a prerequisite for predicting effects on aquatic fauna and a sustainable operation of drinking water facilities using surface waters as raw water sources. A model for the effect of climate on colour (mg Pt L-1) has been developed for two surface raw water sources in Scotland, i.e., at Bracadale and Port Charlotte. Both sites are situated far out on the Scottish west coast, without major impact of acid rain, with limited amounts of frost, and with limited recent land-use changes. The model was fitted to 15 years long data-series on colour measurements, provided by Scottish Water, at the two sites. Meteorological data were provided by UK Met. The models perform well for both sites in simulating the variation in monthly measured colour, explaining 89 and 90% of the variation at Bracadale and Port Charlotte, respectively. These well fitted models were used to predict future changes in colour due to changes in temperature and precipitation based on median climate data from a high emission climate RCP8.5 scenario from the HadCM3 climate model (UKCP18). The model predicted an increase in monthly average colour during growing season at both sites from about 150 mg Pt L-1 to about 200 mg Pt L-1 in 2050–2079. Temperature is found to be the most important positively driver for colour development at both sites.

On the Way to Metropolitanization: Housing Clusters in Turkey

An increasing number of housing clusters have emerged because of the reconstitution of Turkish metropolitan municipalities, supported by the arrangements made in land development plans. Turkish metropolitans are determined by the administrative borders, while the world metropolitans are determined by their functional urban areas. Here, we aimed to evaluate the clustering capacity of metropolitan municipalities by focusing on the distribution of the residential occupation permits. Exploratory spatial data analysis was used to determine the core provinces of housing. The Moran Index was used to investigate the increase of clusters and this was cross-checked with the Spatial Lag results. We improved the recent land-use changes from rural plots to urban service parcels over the presence of the land development plans, including the transactions. Across the limited period studied, grifted patterns appeared. Clustering provinces enhanced the detection of construction that boosted urban development. Furthermore, a meshwork was revealed. In most developing countries, finding diverse and not tempered data sets in official sources is still a big problem. Moreover, open-data sources were limited in this study. In the search to prove uncontrolled urban growth fueled by construction activities, our research established an alternative way to read the metropolitan area network using occupancy permits, where the lack of data cannot be compensated.

Gap-filling carbon dioxide, water, energy, and methane fluxes in challenging ecosystems: Comparing between methods, drivers, and gap-lengths

Eddy covariance serves as one the most effective techniques for long-term monitoring of ecosystem fluxes, however long-term data integrations rely on complete timeseries, meaning that any gaps due to missing data must be reliably filled. To date, many gap-filling approaches have been proposed and extensively evaluated for mature and/or less actively managed ecosystems. Random forest regression (RFR) has been shown to be stable and perform better in these systems than alternative approaches, particularly when filling longer gaps. However, the performance of RFR gap filling remains less certain in more challenging ecosystems, e.g., actively managed agri-ecosystems and following recent land-use change due to management disturbances, ecosystems with relatively low fluxes due to low signal to noise ratios, or for trace gases other than carbon dioxide (e.g., methane).In an extension to earlier work on gap filling global carbon dioxide, water, and energy fluxes, we assess the RFR approach for gap filling methane fluxes globally. We then investigate a range of gap-filling methodologies for carbon dioxide, water, energy, and methane fluxes in challenging ecosystems, including European managed pastures, Southeast Asian converted peatlands, and North American drylands.Our findings indicate that RFR is a competent alternative to existing research standard gap-filling algorithms. The marginal distribution sampling (MDS) is still suggested for filling short (< 12 days) gaps in carbon dioxide fluxes, but RFR is better for filling longer (> 30 days) gaps in carbon dioxide fluxes and also for gap filling other fluxes (e.g. sensible heat, latent energy and methane). In addition, using RFR with globally available reanalysis environmental drivers is effective when measured drivers are unavailable. Crucially, RFR was able to reliably fill cumulative fluxes for gaps > 3 moths and, unlike other common approaches, key environment-flux responses were preserved in the gap-filled data.

Evaluation of recent land-use and land-cover change in a mountain region.

Mountain regions are vital to the provision of ecosystem services. “Cofre de Perote” volcano is the eighth highest mountain in Mexico and provides various goods and services to the people living in the central region of Veracruz. Despite being a protected area as a national park, it shows processes of landscape change in recent years. We mapped land-use and land-cover changes (LULCC) based on remote sensing data (Sentinel-2) from 2017 and 2021. The best classifier was the support vector machine with an overall accuracy value of 0.908 ± 0.003 and 0.916 ± 0.004 for 2017 and 2021, respectively. We estimated that 21.77% of the area changed in only four years. The main trajectory of change was from forests to agricultural, with an area of ​​1224.81 ha and an annual rate of change of -2.39%. Updating knowledge on the dynamics of LULCC will allow better conservation actions for the mountain ecosystems.

Wetlands as a Local Scale Management Tool to Reduce Algal Growth Potential

Recent land-use changes have led to a significant loss of natural wetlands worldwide resulting in increased amounts of organic and inorganic compounds reaching lakes and coastal areas. In turn, this has led to an increased algal growth, and subsequently the risk of algal blooms and deteriorated water quality. The capacity of wetlands to retain nutrients is well-known, suggesting that constructed wetlands may be a potential management strategy to mitigate algal blooms in downstream waters, although little is known about seasonal variation in reduction of algal growth potential. Therefore, in a long-term study, we experimentally evaluated the efficiency of seven wetlands to reduce the algal growth potential by comparing the growth in cultures containing 50:50 wetland water from the inlet or outlet and water from a eutrophic lake as a standard inoculum. We show that the majority of the wetlands have a considerable potential to reduce algal growth potential, with up to 89% for cyanobacteria and 73% for green algae. However, there were strong temporal variations in efficiency within, as well as between wetlands. Specifically, we show that the potential to reduce algal growth (standardized conditions) was generally higher in winter than in summer. In addition, the wetlands showed different efficiency in reducing the growth potential of cyanobacteria and green algae. Taken together, our results show that wetlands have a considerable potential to reduce algal growth potential, suggesting that they are an efficient local-scale tool in reducing the risk of algal blooms especially from a future climate change perspective.

Habitat preference influences response to changing agricultural landscapes in two long-horned bees

Agricultural intensification and urban development have drastically influenced pollinators living in semi-natural grasslands. Pollinators are likely to have different responses to more intensive land uses; some decline rapidly, whereas others maintain or increase their populations. We predicted that differences in interspecific responses to different land uses are partly attributed to differences in habitat preference. We examined the distribution and flower use patterns of two closely related Eucera species with different habitat preferences. Study sites were narrow belt-like meadows within traditional, intensified, and urbanised agricultural lands in the Osaka-Kobe metropolitan area, Japan. Forest-associated Eucera nipponensis were significantly fewer in consolidated and urbanised meadows than in traditional meadows, whereas open land-associated E. spurcatipes exhibited the opposite pattern. A significant negative relationship between their abundance was also found. Both species foraged on legume flowers most frequently (83.5%), but their floral use patterns differed significantly in traditional and consolidated meadows. The bee species that preferred stable habitats were vulnerable to land consolidation and urbanisation, while the species associated with disturbed habitats maintained or increased its population size in meadows with these intensive land uses. Thus, recent land-use changes may have different impacts on species with different habitat preferences.

Niche Breadth Predicts Geographical Range Size and Northern Range Shift in European Dragonfly Species (Odonata)

We studied how range sizes and shifts in species ranges depend on niche breadth in European dragonflies. We measured range sizes and shifts over a 22-year period (1988–2010) and grouped species into those reproducing in permanent running (perennial lotic) water, permanent standing (perennial lentic) water, and temporary (running or standing) water. Running water species are more specialized and have narrower niches with a more fixed niche position than standing water species. Temporary water species are more generalist and have broader niches without a fixed niche position as clear as permanent water species because they may utilize both temporary and permanent habitats. Running water species have smaller ranges, and some of them have contracted their ranges more than species reproducing in standing or temporary waters; that is, they are especially at risk of habitat loss and climate change because of the joint effects of their narrow niches and small range sizes. Temporary water species track climate changes better than permanent water species. This suggests that ecological specialization may cause contemporary range shifts to lag behind changes in climate and resources. Furthermore, it indicates that recent changes in climate and human land use cause biotic homogenization, where specialists are outperformed and replaced by generalists.

Nature’s contributions to people in the context of a changing traditional rice cultivation landscape in the Upper Baram, Malaysia

ABSTRACT Traditional rice agroecosystems face socioeconomic, political, technical and environmental challenges that are resulting in changes in the traditional land use and management system and its contributions to indigenous farmers. This study explored the contributions made by swidden and wet rice agroecosystems in a traditional rice cultivation landscape and how this landscape has been influenced by recent changes in land use and management. Data were gathered from two villages in the Upper Baram, Malaysia, using semi-structured interviews with 43 farmers, and examined by qualitative content analysis. Farmers perceived different benefits from the rice agroecosystems over and above rice, such as non-rice food supply, habitat creation and support of their identity. The wet rice agroecosystem benefits farmers through higher rice yields, while the swidden rice agroecosystem provides a greater diversity of material contributions. Recent trends in land use and management towards the wet rice agroecosystem and plantations, driven by farmer preferences, land use policies and socioeconomic factors, are challenging the contributions available to farmers from the traditional rice cultivation landscape. Actors involved in decision-making in the traditional rice cultivation landscape should therefore consider the impact of land use and management changes on the diversity of contributions provided by rice agroecosystems.

Modeling the effects of future climate and land-use changes on streamflow in a headwater basin in the Brazilian Caatinga biome

Projected climate changes integrated into future land-use changes are extremely complex and hard to estimate, especially for basins located in semiarid environments. This work aims to estimate streamflow and the future water yield using climate prediction and land-use changes in the Salgado River basin for the 2030 − 2060 period. In this study, the applicability of the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) and Land Change Modeler models was verified to estimate flows and land use and cover for the studied basin. Calibration and validation of the SWAT model are used on a monthly basis for 1986 − 2017, with a calibration period from 1986 to 2006 and a validation period from 2007 − 2017. Land use and cover analysis is performed for the 1985 − 2000 period, and future land use and cover is predicted using the land change model for 2050. In addition, future hydrological modeling of the geographical distribution of the water yield is performed for each subbasin of the Salgado River basin from the 2030 to 2060 period. The results of land use and cover changes show that the pasture class was the one that showed the most significant increase in the basin due to recent changes in land use and cover. The results showed that the HadGEM2-ES model presented a minor difference in the representative concentration pathways (RCP) 2.6, which indicates that this model is the most suitable for rainfall-runoff simulations in the region.

Update of the Phlebotominae Fauna with New Records for Argentina and Observations on Leishmaniasis Transmission Scenarios at a Regional Scale

Phlebotominae are small insects distributed in the Americas from Canada to Argentina and Uruguay, counting with more than 500 neotropical species. Some of them have a vectorial role in the transmission of Leishmania Ross, the causative agent of leishmaniases, a group of worldwide distributed diseases with different clinical manifestations and transmission cycles. Our aim was to update the Phlebotominae fauna of Argentina and to make observations on the American Cutaneous (ACL) and Visceral Leishmaniasis (AVL) transmission scenarios, according to the distribution of proven or suspected Leishmania vector species and recent changes in land use. Primary data (entomological captures) and secondary data (review of 65 scientific publications with Phlebotominae records) were used. With 9 new records, 46 Phlebotominae species are now recorded through the area comprising 14 political jurisdictions and 6 phytogeographic provinces. Distribution maps were constructed for the 5 proven or incriminated Leishmania vector species, and the evidence supporting the vectorial incrimination of these species is discussed. Three main ACL transmission scenarios are described in the phytogeographic provinces of the Yungas, Chaco, and Paranaense, associated with deforestation processes, while the transmission scenarios of AVL are urban outbreaks and scattered cases in rural areas. We update the available knowledge on the Phlebotominae fauna present in Argentina, emphasizing its epidemiological relevance in the current context of the increasing frequency of ACL outbreaks and geographic spread of AVL.

Fading opportunities for mitigating agriculture-environment trade-offs in a south American deforestation hotspot

Strong trade-offs between agriculture and the environment occur in deforestation frontiers, particularly in the world's rapidly disappearing tropical and subtropical dry forests. Pathways to mitigate these trade-offs are often unclear, as well as how deforestation or different policies alter the option space of available pathways. Using a spatial optimization framework based on linear programming, we develop a landscape-scale possibility frontier describing trade-offs between agricultural profit, biodiversity, and carbon stock for the Argentinean Dry Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot. We use this framework to assess how current land-use zoning, as well as past and future land-use-trajectories, alter the option space to minimize trade-offs between biodiversity, carbon, and agriculture. Our analyses yield four major insights. First, we found substantial co-benefits between biodiversity and carbon, yet strong trade-offs of both with agriculture. Second, development according to the current zoning could lead to highly suboptimal socio-ecological outcomes; our analysis pinpoints how this zoning could be improved. Third, high landscape-scale multifunctionality can be achieved using different land-use strategies, but maintaining >40% of forest is essential in all of them, and silvopasture systems appear to be central for achieving high overall multifunctionality. Finally, our results suggest the window of opportunity is closing rapidly: recent land-use changes since 2000 have rapidly moved the Chaco within the option space, with forest extent declining towards critical thresholds for maintaining balanced, multifunctional landscapes. Our results emphasize that the time for sustainability planning in the Chaco is now. More broadly, we show how multi-criteria optimization can describe dynamic trade-offs between agriculture and the environment at landscape and regional scales. This can help to identify land-system tipping points that, once crossed, would inhibit more sustainable futures, and policies to avoid such potential traps.

Conservation planning on China's borders with Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam.

Transboundary conservation is playing an increasingly important role in maintaining ecosystem integrity and halting biodiversity loss caused by anthropogenic activities. However, lack of information on species distributions in transboundary regions and understanding of the threats in these areas impairs conservation. We developed a spatial conservation plan for the transboundary areas between Yunnan province, southwestern China, and neighboring Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam in the Indo‐Burma biodiversity hotspot. To identify priority areas for conservation and restoration, we determined species distribution patterns and recent land‐use changes and examined the spatiotemporal dynamics of the connected natural forest, which supports most species. We assessed connectivity with equivalent connected area (ECA), which is the amount of reachable habitat for a species. An ECA incorporates the presence of habitat in a patch and the amount of habitat in other patches within dispersal distance. We analyzed 197,845 locality records from specimen collections and monographs for 21,004 plant and vertebrate species. The region of Yunnan immediately adjacent to the international borders had the highest species richness, with 61% of recorded species and 56% of threatened vertebrates, which suggests high conservation value. Satellite imagery showed the area of natural forest in the border zone declined by 5.2% (13,255 km2) from 1995 to 2018 and monoculture plantations increased 92.4%, shrubland 10.1%, and other cropland 6.2%. The resulting decline in connected natural forest reduced the amount of habitat, especially for forest specialists with limited dispersal abilities. The most severe decline in connectivity was along the Sino‐Vietnamese border. Many priority areas straddle international boundaries, indicating demand and potential for establishing transboundary protected areas. Our results illustrate the importance of bi‐ and multilateral cooperation to protect biodiversity in this region and provide guidance for future conservation planning and practice.

Restoration-as-development? Contesting Aspirational Politics Regarding the Restoration of Wildlife Corridors in the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania

Due to recent land-use change, wildlife migration through the Kilombero Valley has almost come to a standstill. In line with global restoration efforts, the African Wildlife Foundation has thus been given the task of implementing the Restoration Opportunity Assessment Methodology (ROAM), recently developed by IUCN and the World Resources Institute to foster the restoration of wildlife corridors in the area. Designed as a collaborative endeavour, it is in processes such as these that the aspirations of global restoration policies are confronted with specific local contexts. By focusing on specific situations and encounters, especially regarding the participatory aspects of the project, we illustrate how global policy aspirations are appropriated, partly contested and partly played along with, before finally turning into something of an illusion. This way, this article not only questions the more optimistic claims made for ‘conservation-as-development’, it also argues that a better understanding of the plurality of local aspirations and the ways in which they interact with the project’s goals is needed if global policy aspirations are to be realized more successfully.

Analysis of the response of the Epitácio Pessoa reservoir (Brazilian semiarid region) to potential future drought, water transfer and LULC scenarios

The Brazilian semiarid region (BSAR) is affected by the high precipitation variability and severe drought events over time, promoting recurrent water scarcity. The water supply in the BSAR has suffered since 2012 from severe incidents of rainfall reduction, creating a complex scenario of water scarcity, for instance, in Campina Grande city, which is supplied by the Epitacio Pessoa reservoir (EPR). This study analyzed the future impacts on the volume of the EPR based on potential future droughts, water transfer from the Sao Francisco River, population growth and recent changes in land use and land cover (LULC). Several procedures were performed, including (a) simulation of LULC scenarios with the LCM algorithm, (b) simulation of future rainfall scenarios for the period from 2020 to 2030, (c) streamflow simulation using the Soil Water and Assessment Tool (SWAT) model and (d) prediction of water storage in the EPR for the period from 2020 to 2030 using three rainfall scenarios (− 40%, − 45% and − 50%). The results indicated that the SWAT calibration and validation results were considered satisfactory based on the R2, Nash, and PBIAS values. The results were assumed from the rainfall scenarios for the period from 2020 to 2030 together with the LULC scenario for 2030, including the estimated outflow of water transfer from the Sao Francisco River. The results showed, based on the three adopted rainfall scenarios, that the reservoir would reach its critical volume in the first two years of the analyzed period, and the reservoir volume would then increase until 2024 and subsequently return to decrease, reaching the critical volume in 2030.