Half of the Amazon’s forests may be displaced by savanna-like vegetation by the end of the century. Causes of tropical deforestation, such as cattle ranching and slash-and-burn agriculture, contributes one fifth of the average annual global emissions of carbon to the atmosphere. The savannization of even 10% of what remains of the Amazon could provoke net carbon emissions to the atmosphere of several billion tons with potentially substantial impacts on regional evapotranspiration and rainfall.
Interactions Between Climate, Forests, and Land Use in the Amazon Basin: Modeling and Mitigating Large Scale Savannization is a project funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and involves the efforts of scientists and researchers from around the world.
The purpose of the project is to predict how land-cover along with changes in climate will affect the composition, structure, and functioning of the Amazonian ecosystem over the next century. Using a combination of terrestrial models and field measurements, researchers will discover the role of land-cover change and climate in driving savannization of the Amazon and determine forest sensitivity to associated changes in climate, carbon flux, and hydrology.